Archived threads in /lit/ - Literature - 919. page
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What are some books that are particularly informative while being very easy reading (i.e. relaxation)
Something like a book that tries to explain physics and how the world works in a very simple way. Or a history of the world made easy.
>>7738572
A Brief History of Time isn't very easy but still does a good job of introducing cosmology to an absolute layman.
>>7738572
Anything by Bill Bryson
>>7738572
The Evolution of Physics, A. Einstein
Would anyone on /lit/ be interested in exchange postcards/letters? Has there ever been a /lit/ meet up?
The only people autistic enough to go to a meetup are the very bottom drivel of the board.
You can see this every time any board goes and has a meetup.
Sounds like my kind of crowd. When can this happen? Let's do this.
What does /lit/ think the likelihood is that someone like Edith Grossman might retranslate Guzman De Alfarache?
has anyone even heard of this book?
anyone read it in the original?
i'd love to hear your opinion on it
>/lit/ won't comment on obscure or untranslated novels, yet demands everyone become multilingual and not read mainstream literature
fuck sake, you're all plebs, aren't you?
>>7738516
First of all Edith Grossman pretty much exclusively does contemporary Spanish literature. Don Quixote is the outlier in her work.
If you really are that desperate for someone to shitpost a response here it goes:
Mateo Alemán? No discernible talent. He can't think, he can't write. etc.
Best French surrealist books? I liked Les Chants de Maldoror and Story of the Eye, looking for something similar. Are Irene's Cunt and Nadja in the same vein?
The Exploits and Opinions of Dr. Faustroll, Pataphysician by Alfred Jarry.
Moravagine by Blaise Cendrars.
I heard Nadja is good.
Why do you guys hate "genre fiction" so much? Horror, sci-fi, fantasy, etc. Even stuff like mystery.
I don't understand the vitriol and I think you guys are just being needlessly contrarian to what's considered popular. I understand that there can be poorly done genre fiction, but any literary (or artistic) medium can be poorly done. That doesn't mean the whole subset is bad.
It's like, what? People enjoying expansive, well-crafted worlds of fright, futurism, and/or fantasy, and getting enamored with and engrossed in the lore? Wow, how dare they, no they should be chugging hardcore philosophy like men possessed or rereading Infinite Jest for the third time.
We've been over this many times already.
Lit fic makes you think about literature and from literature about people.
gen fic makes you think about the substance of the genre, from there the subjects of the exposition of that genre then from there to the human experience. The experience is not as pure.
>>7738456
All of us started out reading that shit. You get over it, it isn't contrarian, it's called being an adult with actual imagination and human feeling and not at the whim of a puppet master pulling strings of lowest common denominator human emotions. After awhile you BREAK FREE of the strings, you say I believe I've read this one 100 times, I believe this is mere distraction! Watch television and film for immersive distraction, they are far far better at it.
>>7738486
i'm surprised you can type so precisely with that fedora brim tipped do low over your eyes
>>7738481 is a better reason, it's not that genre fiction is bad, really - it can be a good story and very well-written - but you just need to ask whether you're reading for a good story or reading for the consumption of ideas.
Lit fic can have a good story but the idea and intent of the author is at the forefront. Gen fic is vice versa (sci-fi stories, for example, almost as a rule contain some question of morality beneath their topmost layer of spectacle)
in short, feel free to read and enjoy Steven King but it's hard to imagine it can give you the same food for thought as straightforward literature. and /lit/ is, primarily, comprised of people who are clawing at the gates for only the most substantial food for thought.
literary disappointments thread
>you are depressed
>you buy the divine comedy
>it's not a comedy
>>7738455
I bet you think a comedy is a funny play.
>buy On A Winter's Night's a Traveller
>some weird printing error and it ends after ten pages
>read naked lunch
>it's just a worse version of almost transparent blue
This is surprisingly easy to read despite how difficult /lit/ led on that it would be. Honestly the hardest part of this book are the first few pages (Pirates dream of evacuating London). The first few pages include a lot of metaphors that I've read over and over again and cant figure out. Google has also been no use. I was wondering if you guys could help me out with a few passages here.
>No, this is not a disentanglement from, but a progressive knotting into--they go in under archways, secret entrances of rotted concrete that only looked like loops of an underpass . . . certain trestles of blackened wood have moved slowly by overhead, and the smells begun of coal from days far to the past, smells of naphtha winters, of Sundays when no trafflc came through, of the coral-like and mysteriously vital growth, around the blind curves and out the lonely spurs, a sour smell of rolling-stock absence, of maturing rust, developing through those emptying days brilliant and deep, especially at dawn, with blue shadows to seal its passage, to try to bring events to Absolute Zero
What exactly does he mean by, "knotting into"? Does this refer to Nazi forces taking over Britain? And what about the part about blue shadows and absolute zero? I honestly dont have a clue what that's referring to.
Also, is the Hotel they wind up in (in the dream) supposed to be hell?
U sure r smrt.
>>7738477
Didn't claim to be. I know I'm not above average intelligence, so I dont really find that very insulting
>>7738453
Your task in these dreams is often to pens
I want to read NHK, Index, KonoSuba, fate/strange fake and fate/prototype
>>>/a/ or something like that, not /lit/
>>7738385
just because it triggers you don't mean shit.
Go to nyaa OP, there are torrents of almost all of them.
Economics
OC compilation
>>7738370
>no smith
>no marx
>no brain u dum bitch
>>7738384
>reading smith or marx
humanities retard detected
>>7738414
>Studies economics
>Calls others retard
>Studies economics
>Hasn't read Smith or Marx
>Calls others retard
>literary fiction vs genre fiction
why is the former superior to the latter?
I didn't understand those articles I read on the net.
What I got was:
Literary fiction seems to put emphasis on style and themes
Genre fiction seems to focus on plot.
Is Candide literary fiction or genre fiction? What about PKD's do androids dream of electric sheep?
>>7738326
>literary fiction
Candide
>genre fiction
PKD
This is not to say that there are not crossovers (Tolkien and Stanislaw Lem for fantasy and sci-fi, McCarthy for the Western) but genre fiction usually exists within a specified genre like HORROR, which would be ok if for some reason, probably lack of originality, most authors in genre fiction do not innovate (Orcs are attacking!), or if they do, clearly do it in reaction to a set standard (like Orcs being good guys).
>>7738352
But say, what if a tolkien fantasy was re-used to make a satire on modern society (like turning politicians into elves, the lower classes into orcs, etc)? would that turn it into literary fiction?
>>7738366
yuck, that sounds like a kickstarted city building game.
And yes, most fantasy is stuffed full of overdone allegory. A possible exception are Brave New World and 1984 read as sci-fi, but they did something original at that time, you cant go back and reinvent the wheel.
Are there any half-decent English translations of Dream of The Red Chamber?
>>7738268
for the great chinese classics, Foreign Language Press is my go-to.
>>7738298
i JUST got my copy of their Journey to the West today. really nice collection. I'm looking forward to getting the rest of them, since it doesn't look like there's easy access to ebook versions of the unabridged classics. Fantastic stuff, really, i've read a few excerpts in comparison, and there's a clear difference in the quality.
>>7738268
I've seen David Hawkes' version recommended. Can't comment myself though.
What are /lit/s thoughts on Cioran? Any similar works to recommend? Already read and Nietzsche and a fair bit of existentialism and absurdism
Honestly, he makes A LOT of sense sometimes, but it's mostly funny to see how someone could be such an edgelord
>>7738255
Are there any other writers at the same level?
>>7738294
Schoppy perhaps?
Is he considered pleb-tier?
>>7738233
yes
>>7738233
this man in my country, he is nothing.
>>7738235
any reasons why? Never read him desu, just curious
Nabokov was crazy about it and I've heard it's quite unique and insane. What do you say /lit/, should I read it?
>>7738101
yes. read the elsworth translation. (unless you're patrish enough to speak russian)
easily the Joyce of russian literature. the man was an absolute genius. you will not be disappointed.
>is reminded of the Myriapod
>>7738118
>The Joyce of russian lit
That's why I'm afraid to read a translation. I'm learning Russian now, might as well just wait and read the original at this point...
>There are many similarities with Joyce'sUlysses: the linguistic rhythms and wordplay, the Symbolist and subtle political concerns which structure the themes of the novel, the setting of the action in a capital city that is itself a character, the use of humor. The differences are also notable: the English translation of Bely remains more accessible, his work is based on complex rhythm of patterns, and, according to scholarly opinion, does not use such a wide variety of innovations. But these innovations, which subvert commonplace literary rhetoric, are necessary to conveying Petersburg at such a tumultuous time.
Holy shit some people take themselves so fucking seriously
hey /lit/
I won't even try to act as if this isn't for a paper, because it is. I am writing on jealousy and I found a perfect quote from Nietzsche - problem is I can't really explain it well.
can anyone tell me what Nietzsche's thoughts on jealousy are? any general info to "beyond good and evil?"
deadline is due to today, so yeah i'm fucked
whats the quote?
also try >>>/hm/ for homework help
He doesn't like it.
beyond good and evil is the view of originality creation of new "philosopher" but jealousy is the calling back unto already-is, jealousy therefore is inherently anti-beyond-good-and-evil
there i did your hw
>>7738130
He doesn't like it? LOL.
You haven't read Nietzsche.
He doesn't really talk about jealousy. More about envy. But let's assume they are the same thing.
He says basically that envy is good because it makes you want to be a better you.
You want something someone else has because it makes that other person seem better than you.
So when you get that thing that makes the other person seem better than you, you have improved yourself.
Don't listen to >>7738130, he doesn't know what he's talking about.
![184913[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/TKuX6Mq.jpg "184913[1]")
