Archived threads in /lit/ - Literature - 588. page
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Have a couple of questions about translations. Rather than start a new thread for each book, figured I'd start a general questions about translations. Leave more room on the board for bookshelf and infinite jest threads. So ask and answer any questions about translations.
1. Greek Drama. Read the Bantam Classics Greek Drama with translations by A.W Verall, F.A. Paley, R.H. Webb and mostly Moses Hadas, or R.C. Jebb. Overall it was not pleasant. Best translations for Greek Drama? Particularly interested in Aristophanes, even more interested in collections.
2. Spinoza. I live in a place where I can really only get the W.H. White Wordsworth translation of Ethics. Is it any good or do I need to wait until I can get a better translation?
>learn ancient greek and latin.
thanks 4chan.
No answer to those two, but what's the best translation of Kafka's Castle? Even chapter counts differ...
What does /lit/ think of writing two books at the same time?
It seems like this could be a good way to keep your writing fresh. Let's say you're writing a romantic novel and also a horror novel. Perhaps you aren't always in the mood to write horror? Well, good news, you can write romance. Not in the mood for romance? Grats, you can write horror!
Or is this merely a distraction used by people who do not have the ability or passion to complete one novel?
>>7987819
No doubt it depends on the person, but it's definitely the distraction for me
>>7987819
this is "good in concept", except its actually not really even that
I have four novels in progress. If they come out on paper anything like they are inside my head then it will be the literary event of the millennium.
What's the Wittgenstein starter pack? Which works do I need to read and in which order to get an understanding of him?
Start with the Blue and Brown Books.
Move onto some of his essays: On Certainty, Remarks on Color, Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, etc.
Then finish Philosophical Investigations.
>>7987838
No Tractatus?
>>7987841
Different anon here. The Tractatus is very important. Understanding what he was trying to do there and some of the basic facts about how he went about it are a must to understanding what he was doing in later work, which was largely a reaction against the earlier stuff. But the Tractatus is not something you're gonna get much out of if you read it without a decent amount of background.
You should probably start by learning some basic logic (propositional logic and predicate calculus), then by reading Russell's Lectures on the Philosophy of Logical Atomism. Maybe worth reading some Frege and some more Russell, but this is probably enough to make reading the Tractatus not a total waste of time. Russell's views were not the same as Wittgenstein's (many even think Russell misunderstood Wittgenstein), but they're closely related, and his presentation is easier to follow on a first reading. Having knowledge of Russell as a backdrop helps a lot, I think, in understanding Wittgenstein.
Failing this, at least read some sort of guide or companion to the Tractatus or to Wittgenstein more generally, or some of the relevant Stanford Encyclopedia pages. I really do think the basic logic is required, though.
Also, I disagree with >>7987838 that you should read On Certainty, Remarks on Color, and Philosophy of Psych, etc., before reading the Investigations. The Blue and Brown Books would probably be helpful to read beforehand, but I think not absolutely necessary. But in any case, the main thing to read after the Tractatus is the Philosophical Investigations. I recommend the Hacker and Schulte translation.
It's probably also worthwhile to read some commentary on the PI too. If you're ambitious, check out Baker and Hacker's four part commentary. Perhaps more philosophically interesting, but less concerned with getting the exisgesis right (though some think he did get it right anyway, including Anscombe apparently, who was W's student), is Kripke's book Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language. Highly recommended.
Finally, there's a good biography about Wittgenstein by Ray Monk. Not absolutely necessary to understanding his thought, but nevertheless illuminating. Also entertaining and lighter than the rest of the stuff above, so good for taking breaks as you mull things over.
I've been having too much free time lately, and I've been willing to read good books, would you mention a book (and the genre) that you would definitely recommend?
1984, orwell, dystopian science fiction
The crying of lot 49
It is a book about executing of wills and postal intrigue
The Time Machine by H.G Wells.
A Time Traveller in the Victorian era goes something like 800,000 or so years into the future to cause a ruckus.
Recently decided I wanted to try something new, and I have taken an interest in Lovecraft.
But where do I start?
I looked into collections and shit, but I keep seeing complains about errors, missing stories, lack of chronological order listing, ect.
I realized I had no clue what I was doing, and I want to make sure that I make good purchases.
So I thought of /lit/. Help me nerds, you're my only hope.
(I prefer reading physically, so no digital-only stuff if possible. I want to buy a collection preferably, but willing to hear out from experts.)
The New Annotation of H.P. Lovecraft
Joshi's stuff is pretty trustworthy though probably needlessly exhaustive unless you REALLY have an interest in Lovecraft, sometimes.
If you like audiobooks, check out Wayne June's readings of Lovecraft stories on Youtube. Try out Rats in the Walls to start out or something.
>>7987768
You can pretty much just start anywhere; his prose is fairly consistence throughout and the atmosphere it creates is more impressive and effective at conveying his "cosmic horror" philosophy than the content itself.
Rats in the Walls is a good beginning story in that it is short, engaging, and has a satisfying payoff that leaves little open to interpretation.
Other good ones are Dunwich Horror, Shadow over Innsmouth, and Pickman's Model.
His work can roughly be separated into two "cycles" of work: his famous Mythos Cycles focusing on encounters with frightening beings, and his Dreamlands cycle concerning the Randolph Carter storyline and its accompanying landscape. It is more fantastic than the mythos cycles. Dream Quest is the pinnacle of the dreamlands cycle and my personal favorite Lovecraft novel.
I need to know if i should take the time to read such a vast book. Today i watched a movie in which said book was the protagonist favourite and the reason for another character's suicide, thats why i wanna read it. Excuse my poor english, fellow reader, but i am not a native english speaker
what was the movie?
don't read it if you don't want to, it's time for you to make a big boy decision.
Are you asking if we would rec it? Read it, man. I enjoyed it much more than most books I've read.
I had fun reading it some people don't like it and I can see why
I think going into it thinking of it as a time commitment is a bad way to view infinite jest
Rate my bookshelf.
Poor spic /10
>>7987726
I've only read the Galbraith and the Egan. Both were great.
>TFW Christian Stoicism within an agricultural collective is the truest way to live according to God
Good thing I don't believe in that shit
>>7987693
>TFW Christian Stoicism within an agricultural collective is the truest way to live according to God
>MUH GOOD WORKS
What's essential fascism core literature? I mean stuff like Futurism and Nietzsche.
Two things that are fairly far from fascism. Actually read Marinetti, then tell me how liked he'd be by contemporary fascists.
>>7987628
>Nietzsche
not a fascist. Just because Hitler re-appropriated his ideas doesn't make him a fascist.
What are the best book covers you have ever seen?
This de Sade one is mine. Stylish AF, whilst very appropriate for the book.
This has to be bait. That cover is awful. Looks like a fan-made mock-up of a Twilight cover on deviantart.
>>7987617
Post a better one then. Go on.
What do you prefer - Penguin covers?
What edition of Ulysses should I buy?
>>7987590
>>7987584
you can throw one of those out right now.
>>7987584
>he takes the memeposting seriously
ass web story that's gotten mildly populer over the last couple years. It's supposedly a big deconstruction of superhero stuff and I was thinking about reading it.
Do you guys think it's worth my time to start checking it out?
Heard about it too, wouldn't be too opposed to checking it out. Seconding for an opinion.
the first half of the story is a game of thrones set in a decaying city while the second half of the story is constant escalation of the stakes. worm is essentially a 'watered down version of marvel comics that have been injected with many of the tones found in watchmen. it's real edge however is that the whole thing is extremly well writen and that it just keep building the whole way through.
it's a must see for any superhero lover and i would recomend it to anyone over the age of 12.
What do you think about Sherlock Holmes?
>>7987475
i dont
He's an unique character, so well constructed that he probably is the most plausible character in literature
>>7987475
He made fun of previous fictional detectives and Poirot made fun of him. I don't know if it goes on and on though.
From Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France:
>By this unprincipled facility of changing the state as often, and as much, and in as many ways, as there are floating fancies or fashions, the whole chain and continuity of the commonwealth would be broken. No one generation could link with the other. Men would become little better than the flies of a summer.
What did he mean by "flies of a summer"?
Rising up in huge but temporary "success" for a short period and then falling, as regularly and as meaninglessly as the years passing by
>>7987400
Selling paranoia. He scared. Conservatives are timid lot.
>>7987595
why havent you died yet?
I know it's fun to make fun of Sam Harris here and he is wrong about a lot of things, but can we at least give him credit for putting Chomsky in his place and showing the public what an establishment charlatan hack he is?
>>7987389
I hear Harris seriously misunderstood and didn't read Chomsky and assumed what he was saying. The whole thing made Harris look ridiculous.
>>7987409
I was about to say exactly this. When I read their exchange I got the very strong impression that Harris had absolutely no idea what he was talking about, that this wasn't even his field and he had no worthwhile knowledge on the subject.
I feel like Chomsky could have said as much to him, but since ol' Noam is a pretty nice dude he let him down gently.
This actually makes me want to see Sam Harris engage Zizek. That would be a spectacular shitshow.
>>7987417
I don't think we'd learn anything, but it would hilarious to watch those guys clash.
![EdmundBurke1771[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/g9N2C3J.jpg "EdmundBurke1771[1]")
