I've a plan for turning /lit/ into a healthier board.
With this noble proposal in my mind here is the topic of this thread is:
1. Close /lit/.
2. Read al least 30 pages of THAT book you should be reading.
3.Open /lit/
4. Post here the title of the book, what chapter/s have you read, and your thoughts.
5. Comment other posts
no
it is by memes alone i set my mind in motion
but anon I'm reading infinite jest
the master and margarita
op my back hurts
but it is a funny story indeed le russian
Fathers and Sons
Are there chapters? I was paying attention to the words, not the titles.
Barazov a shit.
>>7777209
this
>>7777167
I read 2 pages of Lolita before coming here to post this. Does that count?
What was happened to this board? It's almost incomprehensible now, I opened a thread on American Politics and there wasn't a serious post until like halfway down.
>>7777167
I like this idea OP /lit/ has been shit recently
/lit/ used to contain people who read books of various genres on a consistent basis. Now, it's just a series of people who follow trendy memes and who blindly adhere to the opinions of the literati.
Most decent threads that get created here are almost immediately usurped by idiocy, or else ignored outright.
Guess it's time to create another DFW thread. At least that will get some responses.
>>7778116
Reddit is general underage shit and they found their way here
/mu/ has migrants here that are only interested in lit for status and ego
/pol/ is shitted up with the usual stormfag bigotry, it's such a fast board they spill over here on occasion, though /his/ buffers most of them away.
/his/ absorbs most of the proselytizing christfags, but some of them wander here
>>7777209
>But anon, I'm reading Infinite Jest.
>>7778179
Why is it that the clearest, most immediate solution to all the problems on 4chan is to delete /pol/, yet Hiro-kun won't do it?
It's blatantly obvious at this point. Just wipe /pol/ out. We have /new/ for news, we don't need /pol/.
>>7778201
>Why is it that the clearest, most immediate solution to all the problems on 4chan is to delete /pol/, yet Hiro-kun won't do it?
Let's say you live in a house.
There's a giant tub full of rancid shit right in the middle of the living room.
What happens if you smash the tub?
>>7778201
It's been said a billion times, if /pol/ is deleted then they will cone here and all over the board. /pol/ contains them. It's like breaking a dam to get rid of water.
>>7778237
>/pol/ contains them.
Except it doesn't
Feel free to start any thread pertaining to an author that happens to be jewish, or black, or a woman, or gay, or left leaning.
See what happens.
>>7777209
Bruh, same here and I literally JUST finished 30 pages. spoopy.
>>7778252
That is true. I agree. I have also been to /pol/. The ones that come here atleast know a little about what they're talking about even if they act outraged. If you go to /pol/, you will realize some of the real retards aren't coming here. The shite posters here are the tip of the Iceberg.
>>7778252
What about Asian classics (Chinese, Japanese), modern Asian classics (Mo Yan, Oe, etc), or popular modern Asians (Tao Lin)? Haven't seen too many of those, but other than Tao Lin, they were fairly well balanced discussions.
Sadly the only way to make /lit/ into a healthier board is to get them to read all the book reviews here
http://cosmoetica.com/Archives.htm
And eliminate the subjectivity driven PoMo cancer that's been shitting up the board.
>>7778314
Stop shilling your garbage here.
Guys, don't click the link, the faggot tries to insert himself in everything like an autist.
>>7778319
This is his edit of Ezra Pound. You make the call yourself with your own judgment:
Portrait D’une Femme
Your mind and you are our Sargasso Sea,
London has swept about you this score years
And bright ships left you this or that in fee:
Ideas, old gossip, oddments of all things,
Strange spars of knowledge and dimmed wares of price.
Great minds have sought you--lacking someone else.
You have been second always. Tragical?
No. You preferred it to the usual thing:
One dull man, dulling and uxorious,
One average mind--with one thought less, each year.
Oh, you are patient, I have seen you sit
Hours, where something might have floated up.
And now you pay one. Yes, you richly pay.
You are a person of some interest, one comes to you
And takes strange gain away:
Trophies fished up; some curious suggestion;
Fact that leads nowhere; and a tale for two,
Pregnant with mandrakes, or with something else
That might prove useful and yet never proves,
That never fits a corner or shows use,
Or finds its hour upon the loom of days:
The tarnished, gaudy, wonderful old work;
Idols and ambergris and rare inlays,
These are your riches, your great store; and yet
For all this sea-hoard of deciduous things,
Strange woods half sodden, and new brighter stuff:
In the slow float of differing light and deep,
No! there is nothing! In the whole and all,
Nothing that's quite your own.
Yet this is you.
A flattering portrait? No. But not as harsh as the prior critics said. It works well as both a general & specific critique. A little sententious & redundant, but overall, just a little nip & tucking should make it an easier read.
Portrait D’une Femme
Your mind and you are our Sargasso Sea,
London has swept about you this score years
And bright ships left you this or that in fee:
Ideas, old gossip, oddments of all things,
Strange spars of knowledge and dimmed wares of price.
Great minds have sought you--lacking someone else.
You have been second always. Tragical?
No. You preferred it to the usual thing:
One dull man, dulling and uxorious,
One average mind--with one thought less, each year.
You are a person of some interest
That never fits a corner or shows use,
The tarnished, gaudy, wonderful old work;
Idols and ambergris and rare inlays,
These are your riches, your great store; and yet
There is nothing! In the whole and all,
Nothing that's quite your own.
Yet this is you.
From 30 lines to 18- but what’s really missing? The poem still has great images & can work in the general & specific- but we are rid of some tired Romantic/Victorian images like a mandrake, + tired themes of pre-Feminist femininity like:
Oh, you are patient, I have seen you sit
Hours, where something might have floated up.
And now you pay one. Yes, you richly pay.
In short, this is a perfect example of addition by subtraction.
>>7778237
I'll take that risk. Better a flood at once and then nothing more, than a continual drip-drip-drip.
>>7777167
>started reading Ulysses with that reading group
>15 pages a day
>easy amiright
>miss a day
>that's ok I catch up the next day
>almost 150 pages behind were I should be
>still haven't read it today even though I did practically nothing
What is wrong with me senpai? I like too. Every time I sat down and slowly read it I enjoy it.
>>7778415
I literally want to fuck her.
>>7778348
no one gives a shit lol
>>7777167
I took op's suggestion, closed /lit/ and proceeded to put in a marathon reading session and read pages 200 to 230 of To the Finland Station.
The book is a history of socialist thought from the time of the French Revolution through to the Russian Revolution. Right now I am reading chapters focused primarily on Mark and Engels though I am nearing the end of their section and close to the beginning of the section on Ferdinand Lassalle.
I picked up this book based on a thread another anon wrote about the book asking if anybody else had read it, but apparently nobody had, or if they did they were too busy meme-posting to notice. I looked the book up, saw it was NYRB, and having an interest in the subject matter and faith in NYRB's selection of books to publish and revive interest in, I bought a copy.
I was surprised by Engels' nationalism, at least with his attitude toward Poland as "courageous but stupid" and needing to be ruled by German overlords if they were ever to make any progress.
Also amusing was Marx's outrage at a Berlin court dismissing his libel case because how could a revolutionary's reputation be made any worse even if somebody's accusations that Marx had blackmailed fellow radicals were false? He was still a revolutionary and beneath contempt. The author, Edmund Wilson, seems as amused as I am that Marx was so butthurt by the inujstice of the very bourgeoisie institutions he was trying to destroy, yet he beseeches them to provide justice.
Some of the discussion of dialectical materialism made my head hurt but other than that the book is an engaging read. And Engels sounds like a bro, would hang out with and drink schnapps with.
>>7778784
Sounds like a great book, covers buddenbrook period but is more focused on a world view.
Sadly has no translation in other languages, someone can advise similar books?
Something that goes from french revolution to 1900
>>7778784
Sounds like an interesting read, thanks for this post!
I've been reading Biology as Ideology from Lewontin, he's always been a bit of the contrarian to modern biology, usually being very skeptical of all "bigger" claims. This one is all about how biologists/scientists think that their work is outside of society, but in reality it's highly influenced by it - Darwin's theory of natural selection is "just" an application of the mainstream social theories of his time (Malthus' stuff populations). Now that our society has become "atomized" our science has followed in the form of reductionism (nice quote: "We no longer think, as Descartes did, that the world is *like* a clock. We think it *is* a clock").
Sometimes he strawmans a bit too hard for my taste (systems biology etc. is the opposite of reductionism, people have moved away from saying that genes cause everything) but it's still great to read such an "opposite" viewpoint.
>>7778156
>books of various genres
Sounds /rbooks/ as fuck. Memes or not, if it was genreshit all the time then this is an improvement.
>>7780317
read Biology Under the Influence as well its really good
>>7778415
why haven't I been seeing the Ulysses threads for the readalong? are they being made somewhere else or something?
>>7777167
I read 2 books a week, I'm fine.
>>7781168
It was DOA, at thread 1. Nobodies even talked about its death out of posterity. People on lit do not read.
>>7781185
I'm a person on /lit/ and I read, I'm reading Ulysses right now.
>>7777167
Step 1. Ban roasties
>>7780338
genres as in 'types', as in varied styles, subjects, themes, etc.
>>7777167
>I've a plan for turning /lit/ into a healthier board.
>1. Close /lit/.
not sure why you felt the need to add 4 more steps. had it in 1 m8.
The Sound and the Fury:
Chapter 2 (June Second, 1910)
From Page 90-120
Sorry this is basically going to be a blog post about the book so far. I'm almost half-way and I already know I'm going to have to re-read this.
Here, Quentin is walking out of Boston, trying to find a clocktower for some reason. His thoughts are racing about his past. He finds some kids looking for a place to fish.
I have some big questions about this book so far.
Quentin was a teenage girl in the first section, right? Why is Quentin a college boy now? Why do names keep changing?
I feel bad for Benjy. Was he drunk during the funeral? Was that a funeral? What do these dates even mean? Benjy's narrative jumped all over the place.
I feel like I have less knowledge so far about anything than I have questions. Really don't know what the fuck is going on, other than their family is apparently pretty fucked up, and possible southern aristocratic.
