Hello.
I'm bad at phrasing questions, so I'll put it this way. I came upon one Ludwig Hohl through the convenience of a thread that originated here, and am now become enthralled by relatively obscure authors, but am at a loss as to where to begin searching for them, really. I want things that break from the mainstream, outspokenly individual and divorced from a modern want of subscribed genres, things that don't basically speak to the individual as a product of his contemporaneous society but as, and this will sound a bit esoteric, the individual as concrete as time itself. The work does not necessarily need to be philosophical, but I would love, personally, had the work been in allegory, hinting to the meaning but never claiming to achieve it. Can /lit/ help name some authors or books? Anything on par is permissible.
Also, feel free to discuss civilly.
>>7477661
bump
>>7477982
bumping again
I want 2 be ur friend :3
>>7478453
We are all friends here, anon.
>>7477661
This isn't exactly what you're looking for, but "How to be both" by Ali Smith comes to mind as something that sits outside of the general stream through which most literature passes through. It plays with form as much as it does with identity, and, despite being occasionally difficult to follow, it's an enthralling read.
I'm really interested in what you mean by "the individual as concrete as time itself"; can you talk more about that? That's a fascinating notion; I feel like I'm equally as swayed by the argument that the self is unimportant and that it's no more than a social/linguistic construct as I am by the argument that the self is something concrete and transcendental, carrying cosmic importance.
>>7478490
I should admit this firstly, as it is your prerogative: the notion is vulgar or undeveloped. It bothers me that I know no precedent of it - as I would love it defined - in the huge motley of ideology, and would love if someone can show me the way or point me to someone who discusses it at length, be it against or for. The idea begins with distinguishing human - your average shaven bicep - from humanity, a child is born into the world untapped, untarnished - tabula rasa, man comes around and drives his screws in that he, like a dry plank of wood, splits into two or more. All men have a true essence of what is "humanity," which to many if not all an empty slab - since only the highest ideals can occupy its placeholders. It is the everyday mystic, an expatriate in a closet, praying incessantly, it is he who wonders under the starry night, but it is to the second that man retreats after his silence. Your second persona carries you through life, and as it is most acquainted with its presences, the other sinks infinitely down the well until...
Another question gets hurdled around oft, especially among enthusiasts from either side, religious or lacking: If a man were to worship another God, does this invalidate his spiritual depth? And from the benches, each raise their hand boomeranging an answer, churning inside. Religious folk call it the devil's deception, atheists call it group therapy, conformity. To me, it calls for a deeper observation, that divinity is insight into a human condition, not transcendental, but by convenience of clerics and naysayers has reduced to a named abstraction or fifty, become in its magic professional storytellers.
Art, music and literature play this part, "humanities" says it all. But what do they exploit? If you are a far shot down St. Peter's gates, you do not curse but plead to the living God, and the placidity of earthly life is, in comparison, much despicable in biblical measure. What the haecceity of music is to literature, I so not know, but they both speak to man. The idea is this: the lower you are, the farthest you are, that you are delirious to your twosomeness or multiplicity of selves - not psychological, not schizophrenic, but a device to get over my standpoint, the harder the notion strikes you when it resonates. As if you throw a rock in a calm lake, it propagates waves left undisturbed, palpable, observable.
The highest notion in man is to wed himself with all his constituents and become an "individual," the embodiment of humanity, but not "human." A spiritual recluse is not a recluse from naught, he has found himself and in self-immersion has lost want of the world, its impermanence in his eye.
About how I think man gets around achieving this feat, I do not know. I hypothesize that it is incidental, but next to that I possess no knowledge.
>>7477661
im curious too
>>7478699
bumping for thread potential
>>7478490
>"How to be both" by Ali Smith
Sounds cool, will check out.
bumping for today.
>>7478486
:^)
>>7478589
>The highest notion in man is to wed himself with all his constituents and become an "individual," the embodiment of humanity, but not "human." A spiritual recluse is not a recluse from naught, he has found himself and in self-immersion has lost want of the world, its impermanence in his eye.
the interesting thing about this is that as soon as you pursue the goal of absolute individuation to its fullest extent, you end up back at the beginning state of simple being, because any deliberate grand act of self-establishment is ultimately a betrayal of the streamlined goal of erasing the particular and inhabiting the universal. more important than discovering art that inhabits this extra-human, universal space is the realization that the universal is contained inside the particular, as Joyce said. when your thinking is shifted to appreciate that idea, the simple passage of time, the taking of steps, or the unfolding of a life becomes inordinately mystifying and invigorating, and all literature can invoke the response I think you're seeking.
what is modern literature?
>>7482933
>and all literature can invoke the response I think you're seeking.
I had an irking feeling that this is most correct. All literature is a response to some stimuli, something propels the writer to put pen on paper - fingers to typewriter, mouth to recorder, medium to media - and convey. What I might try to say is that pieces of literature "speak" to likes and opposites of ilk, and this, as you pointed out, is universal in all art. There are two ways to achieve this "call for self-absolution" that I've been yapping about, one was incidental, but I think the other - now that you point at it - is to tune oneself to marvel at everything, not necessarily enamoredness of how art - broad as it is - has come to be in consequence of the overwhelming noise and chaos prevalent in the universe, but more a "sympathy" to the artist, to get as much as he can to what sliver of quality brought them to write or paint or play this opus of theirs. Of course, there are degrees of revelations tantamount to degrees of the work's quality or straightforwardness of its message. I needn't explain this, I'd like to think.
On a related tangent, it saddens me that /lit/ adopts the more radical pleb-against-patrician dichotomy, ironic or not. I think it leaves so much to be hoped out of critical or open discussion when we take any arbitrarily set book 'X' and put it against all else.
>the interesting thing about this is that as soon as you pursue the goal of absolute individuation to its fullest extent, you end up back at the beginning state of simple being
The monomyth is beautiful like that, don't you think? It leaves enlightenment away from torpor and sitting in little zawiyahs in Qum or Cairo or where-have-you talking endlessly about the light of being under the shade of God, this relates thinly to the arrogance of the religious and their antitheses, vide supra.
>>7482983
anything after 1923(?)
>I came upon one Ludwig Hohl through the convenience of a thread that originated here
Was it that thread about "german meme trilogy"? Because I was mentioning Ludwig Hohl there.
I'd say it depends from where you are. I mean: for myself the great indicator about interesting books and authors are publishers, translators and sometimes introductions to books I like. By publishers I mean really these small publishing houses, they don't care too much about making money - they just want to publish great things. The same goes with some great translators (pls no muh translation meme) - they often know a lot about some weird corners of literature, have their favourite underdogs and so on. Lastly the introduction, it it is written by someone you trust and it's related to some book you like, it won't probably be a disappointment.
I don't know much about english publishers, but Dalkey archive seems great (even though they are probably publishing some bigger names, not really that obscure things).
Another really great publisher: Twisted Spoon Press. I guess you would might loved Ladislav Klíma, Ladislav Novák, Hermann Ungar, Gherasim Luca, and so on. They are about to release Walter Serner and he's great too.
>>7487211
Thank you for this, and yes. Hohl did come to my attention from the German meme trilogy thread.
OP, you might like Henry Darger's "The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion."
