/lit/ - Literature

>The Black Book by Orhan Pamuk
>Into Woods by Bill Roobach
>Orlando Innamorano trans. William Stewart Rose

Got into Pamuk after I read Snow. I feel like I enjoyed Snow more, but Black Book is still pretty good.

Roobach is a top-tier essayist and nature writer, so I totes recommend Into Woods for anyone that's looking to get into personal essays.

I have a hardon for The Song of Roland, so I wanted to keep reading about Count Roland's adventures.

>>3923111
This is why I envy asians. They got all the logographic languages. Furthermore, from what I know, Chinese and Japanese sentences (don't know about Korean or other asian languages) can be arranged in many ways while still retaining the intended meaning.

>tfw Gwai Lo

>>3923093
>It lacks sophistication, it's laughably bombastic and crude.

Like, say, the firemen? Or the protagonist? His wife? The whole society Bradbury depicts in the book?

This is actually the very clever bit about F451. It knew its reader base (at the time of its release). The book knows readers will approach it as a work of genre fiction - as pulp, basically. And at first, they will. But then, readers will begin to draw parallels between the novel and contemporary American society: the desensitization to war, the rampant nationalism, the defeatist submission to nuclear apocalypse, etc..

That's why the novel's considered a classic.

>>3923116
Yeah. How come we see so many English classroom novels on this board?

>>3922989
>>3922992
>>3923055

That's the point of the intro, guys. It's intended to bring to mind the nihilist romanticisation of destruction, the machismo of chauvinism and fascism. It's a satire -- a caricaturization.

And when Bradbury gets to describing the firemen, how they're basically SS troopers: that's supposed to bring the intro back to mind.

You have to be pretty dense to not get that.

Both. I prefer F451, because Orwell's rhetorical aims tend to burden the plot at points, but both are renowned for a reason. So, read both.


And then, read Brave New World.
And after that, We.
And then finish off with A Clockwork Orange.

None of these works are particularly difficult or hard, and all are enjoyable.

Oh, and you'd better throw in The Trial, for good measure.

Did you read Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead yet, OP?

>>3921020
>>3922501

make some jenk on this diet too and huff it

>>3922147
Dude. I just tried doing that.

While it's hard as hell to just scan a page by reading right down the middle, I have realized that reader from one end of the page to the next is unnecessary, as your peripheral vision CAN take some of the burden off, and may even give you the capacity to read two lines at once.

Of course, that would require you to stop reading in a linear fashion. It's like schizophrenic reading. But I still think you're onto something here, anon!

>>3922224
Yeah, except this thread is about reading faster, which is a valuable thing to practice in a variety of situations. For example: working as a technical writer, I was not exposed to any "poetic visions" in the spreadsheets and e-mail correspondences that I had to compile into memos, user-guides, progress reports, etc..

When I was a student, there were a variety of courses I took that had nothing to do with my major, but were required for graduation. Speed-reading helped me to work through texbook chapters quickly, leaving more time to focus on the classes important to me.

Faster reading has a wide range of applications far beyond literature; and training oneself to read faster does not mean one will be less apt to enjoy and "embrace" the sublime.

To conclude: you have no idea what you're talking about.

>>3922044
Well, I suppose I would be on the floor.

>>3921982
Start placing a pencil or other flat object beneath the current line you're reading. It slows you down at first, but trains your eyes to move in a horizontal line as you read. Most don't realize this, but eyes that aren't conditioned to read in a typewriter-like fashion frequently "skip" off the text, causing you to re-read the same word twice.

While it's nearly imperceptible, there are tell-tale clues: have you ever found yourself re-reading the same line of text, or skipping a line by accident?

If you manage to train your eyes to stay on the current line of text you're reading, you'll significantly increase your reading pace while at no cost of comprehension.

Another thing thing you can do is make sure you aren't mouthing the words on the page as you read. The difference between speaking reading in terms of comprehension is quite large. The next time you read a text, pay attention to your lips, tongue, and jaw. If they move to the phonetic rhythm of the sentences, then you're slowing yourself down.

>>3921932
It really doesn't make sense.

You don't need a textbook to teach kids math. Hell, my Calculus teacher taught entirely through lectures and writing notes on the board. We just had a workbook full of exercise to do as homework.

You also don't need textbooks to teach kids the classics -- anything pre-20th century doesn't have a copyright on it and is available online for free. Instead, high school teachers insist on teaching modern literature: stuff like Looking for Alaska and Tuesdays with Morrie.

However, the problem with English classes is a simple one: most teachers in America spent half their time learning to teach rather than reading literature. They don't have degrees in literary criticism -- they have degrees in "Adolescence Education." As a result, you have several college graduates that know how to babysit teenagers and feed students canned interpretations of Shakespeare, but won't touch The Picture of Dorian Gray because it's prejudiced against the gays.

>>3921958
I don't think that's true. Trig is mostly about knowing how and when to utilize arithmetic and particular formulas. Of course technology makes calculations easier, but it's all useless if one doesn't know how to input algorithms or recognize & re-arrange formulas.

Also, your anecdote about using trig in a geology course speaks to the universality of mathematics. It can almost be compared to philosophy in the humanities: both exist within and are integral to a variety of fields.

>>3921976
Depends on the 7th grader.

There's always a buyer.

You guys are all just attempting to justify living a stagnant lifestyle. Intellectual pursuits are meant to be a supplement to the thrill of life, not the core of it. One can learn to play a musical instrument, read the classics, learn a new language, paint, write, learn a programming language... but it all pales in comparison to gettin dat green.

Sure, you might say
>but anon! I'm not one of those scumbags that sits at home all day! I go out with friends, get laid, go to school, etc..

but that does not excuse you from denying your divine calling of collecting shekels.

>But I can still experience the joys of life through literature and writing!

No novel can capture the sublime of lifting a fat pack out of walmart and selling each booster at a "discount" in high school parking lots.

No novel can echo the thrill of spray painting pencil shavings green and selling them to 7th graders in dime bags.

Gotta get dat green, mang.

>>3921731
Finally! A post I can agree with!

Those who study philosophy in a vacuum are wasting their time, as it's useless unless used in conjunction with other disciplines. From my own experience, philosophy majors are walking echo chambers that do nothing but regurgitate the lectures and outlooks of their professors.

I'm friends with a number of English and Math majors, and those that read philosophy in their spare time (or use it in conjunction with their studies, in the case of English major studying theory) are really good at making different philosophical perspectives "come to life".

Personally, I don't think philosophy should be taught in schools or universities. Every individual is fully equipped to become a scholar on their own.

Amerifag here.

OP, highschools in my country are only getting worse as time goes on, due to the fucked economy and perpetual budget cuts for public services. It isn't just the classics that are getting shafted: music classes are evaporating, business courses are being removed from the curriculum, art classes beyond the introductory level are becoming nonexistent...

It's affecting the core curriculum too. I know several high school grads that managed to get their diploma without taking Trigonometry or Statistics. It baffles my mind -- I can understand pre-calc being an elective, but missing the chance to take Trig basically castrates a student intellectually, preventing him from taking ANY college-level mathematics.

When I graduated, I saw several languages removed from the roster of courses a student had access to. My 1st year of High School, I had the option of taking Spanish, French, Russian, German, Italian, or Latin. By my senior year, it was just French and Spanish.

Oddly enough, English classes are doing just fine. IMO, English classes are useless in my country, right alongside History.

>>3919672
>>3919587
Poetry is monological in nature (as opposed to the heteroglossia of novels), so IMO there is always an implied speaker.

One could, of course, write a poem in the form of a dialogue, but I don't think there could ever be an impartial, omniscient narrator in a poem, as that would sap away all capacity for the sublime from that form.

>>3919486
Well, Gaddis died back in 2005, so I guess the greatest LIVING novelist would be Thomas TAOLIN

I've heard that before, but I have to disagree.

First person narration is something that can either make a story fantastic or absolutely ruin it.

At its best, you get works like Pnin or >>3919526
or Clockwork Orange: the perfect culmination of subjective voice and narrator agenda. At its worst, you get a narcissistic account of something that has no significance to the reader. Basically >>3919554

Generally speaking, 3rd person past-tense narration is a universal tool for telling a story: it gets the job done and gives the reader "space" from the actual story. If you can't write a story in 3rd person, you have no hope as a writer.

1st person introduces an intimacy that must be carefully managed, so the reader isn't put off by the subjectivity of the narration, begin to dislike the narrator, or grow weary of the narrative's melodrama. Generally speaking, there is a REASON for a narrative to be in 1st person, as opposed to 3rd.

2nd person is a whole different level, as it directly puts the reader in opposition with the narrator. I wouldn't even attempt it until you've memorized Mason & Dixon, read Finnegan's Wake in the original french, and remained abstinent until 30.

>>3917829
>It's a book worth thinking about after you've read it

I agree, but finding the humor in it in the moment of reading is half of reflecting on it. You laugh at the absurdity of an artist renting a studio apartment out of the attic of a government building, and ponder on the terror of such an inept, opaque system of bureaucracy being so intrusive.

Have you gotten to the scenes with the Lawyer and the maidservant yet, OP?

>>3917692
Are you finding it funny or amusing. OP? That's my main draw to all of Kafka's works. If the situations and conflicts Kafka creates aren't your thing, then don't feel bad about putting it down.

I'm not saying you don't "get it" or you're "missing something." Kafka may very well just not be your thing.

His prose is clunky and dry because he was a GSL, and this is only aggravated by an English translation. So sublime prose certainly isn't the appeal of his works. One might even say that he is known and revered solely for his gimmicks. This is coming from a huge Kafka fan, by the way.

At the risk of sounding plebeian, I'd recommend picturing Joseph K. as George Costanza. That might revitalize your enjoyment in it a bit. If not -- eh. Reading something you gleam nothing from is a waste of time, IMO.

>>3917794
It varies for each issue: 15 low, 35 high.

As far as quality goes: several submissions are a definite "No," some are a "maybe" most are "good" and a very select few are "great."

Occasionally we get one that's a sure-thing. We debate the most on which good submissions should get in.

/lit/ should totally have a list of recommended mags.

Anyway, I'd nominate Midnight Graffiti. It's a now-defunct horror-mag from the 80's. Good shit, if you can find some. My local comic book shop has a huge archive of them for two bucks an issue.

Heavy Metal is also pretty good, although it's kinda dull these days. From what I know, they don't write editorials anymore, and I miss that. Getting a copy from the 70's or 80's is pretty good for a nostalgia trip, though.

It's funny: I know a few publications from the 70's, 80's, and early 90's, but can't really think of any modern ones.

>>3915456
We publish multiple works from the same author quite frequently. However, if an author sends in more than 3 submissions that we really like, we will probably spread them over a couple issues. So go ahead and send in any works of yours that you like!

>>3915192
>wasting the editors' time

But anon! TAR was DESIGNED to be a waste of time for readers and editors alike!

>would it be possible to have the whole thing published at once?

At 40 pages? Doubtful. We try to keep each issue around 30 pages.

If you give me some formatting specs (font size, spacing, margins) I can tell you an approximate number of issues it would have to be divided among.

>How soon would you need it for the October issue?

We may just be able to look it over if you send it in early September. Mid to late August would be a better bet, though.

>>3914977
Yeah, you're right. I've gone ahead and reduced the clutter on the formatting. I guess I went a little gung-ho with the clip-art.

>>3915151
I felt the exact same about it; however, I think the abrupt ending really works if you consider the piece a mimesis on the labor of mourning. The ending remains the same as the beginning, despite all the hurling and drunken dancing.

>>3915282
Did you recieve your e-mail? If not, there is a possibility we never got the submission to begin with (I've had subs show up in the spam folder before) -- what was the name of the submission?

>>3915405
Here's the thing: a well-written story about parrot porn and blueberry inflation is a better read than a poorly-written story with opaque descriptions and clunky sentences. We published tentacle guy's stuff because he had a good sense of his own style, making his stories enjoyable reads.