Archived threads in /lit/ - Literature - 5. page
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What does /lit/ think of Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo? I found it really disturbing and yet very captivating... the way the author writes his characters and his prose style makes it a very in-depth and fast read. I read it in a day. I liked it, even though it was such a sad and achingly poignant book. Good stuff.
>>8292812
Its basically MUH MERICA and other kind of drivel, for the emotionally retarded.
>>8292837
Literally untrue, its first and foremost anti-war, and then below that a call for the universality of humanity.
>>8292812
I read it in highschool, but it has always been up there in my favorite books. The chapters where he focuses on his nerve endings to figure out what happens to him, and his "speech" via morse code are my favorite parts. Also the perpetual dreamlike state he exists in is compelling.
>>8292837
>dalton trumbo
>literally put in prison for being a gommie
>muh america
Red pill me on Zizek
He's so pleasantly deranged but i have no idea what his actual philosophy entails; i just laugh at him.
>mad slovenian man robs DVD publisher blind! must see! [18+]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqpxT_iJ8Mc
>>8292788
>i have no idea what his actual philosophy entails; i just laugh at him.
this is zizek fans if they were all honest
>>8292795
>incest between mother and son, I like this
What did he mean by this?
Think about it...
There are more books printed and translated into many languages than any point in human history. His fanbase of constant readers is MASSIVE and his books sell like crazy all over the world. Add to that how prolific he is and it makes me curious if anyone has ever had more human beings read their stories than Stephen King.
>>8292739
I think folks were illiterate when he wrote that and the Quran.
Given the current literacy rates, I'm going with Stephen King. He's a much better writer than God.
>Classicists watch in horror as modern genre fiction authors creep closer and closer to the top spot
>>8292747
Goddamnit, I forgot about overrated ass Shakespeare.
ITT we post the worst shmoop summary we can find
>>8292523
That's really accurate tho
I've only watched the animu of this. Is there any reason to care about the book?
>>8292893
>Is there any reason to care about the book?
Yes.
Im trying to find a book i read years ago but I remember next to nothing about it, not even the title or author.
>its about some kid who's vacationing in alaska and crashes his snow mobile
>some guy finds him, I think his name was Hank
>they fight the 2 antagonists, cant remember why the were fighting, one antagonist was short and fat I think
>It turns out Hank is in Alaska because he commited manslaughter on his best friend or something
I've...
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>>8292467
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
>>8292475
Nope.
>>8292467
I'm also trying to remember a book I read years ago. Maybe this can be a book finder thread? Here's mine:
>It starts out kind of spy themed like an Ian Fleming novel (but not Ian Fleming novel), but you know kind of Tom Clancy pulpy sort of.
>Basically this guy is standing by a private twin prop, he's American but he doesn't have a name or anything
>His men bring him some Soviet exmilitary type guys causing...
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"What does it feel like to be lonely? It feels like being hungry: like being hungry when everyone around you is readying for a feast. It feels shameful and alarming, and over time these feelings radiate outwards, making the lonely person increasingly isolated, increasingly estranged. It hurts, in the way that feelings do, and it also has physical consequences that take place invisibly, inside the closed compartments of the body. It advances, is what I’m trying to say, cold as ice and clear as glass, enclosing and engulfing."
What does the /lit/izens think...
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>>8292462
>Writes about loneliness
>can't conceptualize it in any way what so ever
>chooses to compensate it by faux 2deep5u sub standard proses.
GTFO.
>>8292491
I've already read Faust, Young Werther and Wilhelm Meister's Apprentice and my mind hasn't been blown yet. I thought you guys said this guy was good? Did I miss something? Faust was pretty good, but nothing to write home about, and Sorrows is basically Twilight-tier (not even baiting here).
Did you read them in German?
>>8292259
No, but I read the best translations I could get my hands on. Doesn't that count for something?
>>8292269
No.
>he thinks that translations actually count as "reading nietzsche"
Yeah. My native language is spoken by 5 million people only so I just can't, you know, get into this whole "language matters" thing. I have to pretend that translations are okay.
If I don't, it'll lead down to being like Heidegger, which, for me, would mean accepting that I just can't read any real philosophy since my native language isn't any good, has no philosophical history and so on.
Please understand.
>it's an anon thinks meaning and language are inseparable episode
>suggesting I'm still not basically just translating unless I spoke German with native proficiency and exposure
>suggesting that reading a translation by someone who does know German well doesn't put me close to the original meaning than me reading it in German myself with poorer understanding than the translator
>implying all reading isn't a form of transation anyway
Nigga, reading translations is the best option for the most part.
What does /lit/ think of Ayn Rand and more specifically of Atlas Shrugged.
I am reading it currently and find it to be deeply philosophical and moreover perhaps the best story I've read. However the general lack of disscussion about her or her books on this board seems to be indicative of indifference or dislike. If this is the case; Why is it the case?
>>8292132
FUCK Ayn Rand.
>>8292132
does this thread have to happen every day?
>>8292134
Why? I'm genuinely curious
How do I write more than a paragraph or so at a time? I want to tell stories but the only writing I can manage is, I don't want to say purple, but it tends to be very airy prose. And I don't want to abandon that, but I want to produce something more long form and coherent at the same time.
How do you write stylized prose for extended lengths?
>>8292079
you work harder
Any story worth telling can be told in a sentence.
>>8292079
use storyboards.
make a beat-sheet by laying out the basic story beats(X happens, then Y happens, then these two talk, etc.) Then use that as a guide to keep you writing in a direction by expanding each story beat into the narrative like a checklist.
Don't worry about your prose, finish it first, then edit it once there's something substantial on paper
Does anyone else love these books? Because I love them to death. Even as an adult.
They were the highlight of my childhood reading, I was sad when I finished them.
>>8292069
They sorta diagnosed my autism
I never laughed at any of the "jokes" (i.e. "And everyone spent the rest of the day turning their pencils over and over again, trying to write their names on them") I just got angry at them and confused why anyone would do something so stupid, so I got sent to a behavioral health specialists and wouldn't you know it, Autism.
>>8292086
>being actually autistic
So I've been writing books for a living for around 2 years now, it's been going pretty alright
Lately I tried getting into books and reading them, but I just get sick of them so quickly
I actually really like writing books, all kinds, which is a bit odd I guess, that reading them is such a no go for me
Is this common? For writers to hate reading books?
Post some of your work.
Never heard of it but please don't change. A writer who is excited about writing but who doesn't read would be extremely valuable. Please do post your work and don't be discouraged if people don't like it. You have what may be a unique situation, hold onto it
>>8292015
Alright I dug this up
http://pastebin.com/Qc3ERcpn
This one I actually got paid for, but it was never published so I never polished it
Sorry in advance for the mistakes that are surely in it
Fitzgerald, lattimore, or fagles or are you apopeman? Which are you a fan of?
Fitzgerald > Lattimore >>>>>>>>> Fagles
Pope almost seems like he's part of an incomparable lineage desu. I don't think he was really trying to accomplish the same things as the others.
No translation. But I do like Lattimore.
ITT: people who have read 0-1 translations but feel qualified to speak on all of them.
Are the Letters of Vincent van Gogh worth reading?
Was he particularly philosophical? Are his letters only read because of his fame as a painter?
Nope.
>>8291980
I think they have some merit since they give an insight into the mind of a great painter. He was pretty crazy though, his last letters to his brother show this pretty clearly.
>>8291980
Generally, writing by painters make enjoyable reading (I don't mean Mein Kampf) because they talk in specifics:
"It’s a magnificent morning, the sun is shining through the large acacias on the playground, flashing on the roofs and windows visible behind the garden. There are already threads of gossamer in the garden, and it’s cool in the morning and the boys run back and forth to get warm. I hope to tell them the story of John and Theagene..."
So on that alone they have merit. There's...
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Opinions? I think it's pretty neat-o. Never imaged ruling back then was actually complex desu.
It's also free for Amazon Kindle hence me reading it
>>8291977
*my reading it
No Socrates or Everyman philosopher could have written it. What makes Machiavelli's account so scintillating to me is how it's so unprecedented, like mailing the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times. Only courtesans and monarchs have experienced the benefits of furtive and manipulative dominion, and reading this is like putting another person's head on. I don't think Machiavelli intended it, but in the countryside, flummoxed out favor, he wrote today's equivalent of a tell-all...
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>ruling back then
Still applies to nowadays and is widely applied by nowaday's politicians.
Machiavelli never wrote a manual on how to be a dick like many people seem to think. He wrote a book on how to effectively maintain your kingdom stable if you are a political leader. A shame it is distorted so often.
Obligatory read for law students by the way, I had to do this at the second/third month of my first semester. But I had already read it before, pretty good read, especially interesting if you are reading the version with Napoleon's commentaries (you will find that he is a immense moron that only says "THE POWER!! THE POWER!!!" every single time, I wonder how someone like that managed to be such a based political leader)
I was just thinking about this.
The Italian literary tradition never really recovered after Dante. Perhaps understandably since he is a hell of an act to follow but the English followed up and prospered after Shakespeare so im not entirely sure why that is.
Still, while its easy to deprecate Italian lit what they had instead was an explosion of art, sculpture and architecture that was unlike anything the rest of Europe was able to sustain. And the Renaissance is more visible now anything the English literary tradition came up with.
