/lit/ - Literature

>Why is the novel dead? Because nobody can sit down and tell the truth about the world around without losing their job and reputation because the entire Cathedral/Longhouse will make an example out of them to make sure nobody ever does anything like that ever again.

>If you try to write the truth about what it was like to live in Chicago under Lori Lightfoot, or San Francisco after Chesa Boudin turned it into a filthy anarcho-tyranny, then you know and I know that there isn’t a publisher, editor or literary agent of any quality or value who will have the balls to publish the truth and back you up against getting tarred and feathered and flayed alive. These cowards will always save their own skins and hang you out to dry.

>I understand. The cowards are just people with jobs and families, and they’re trying to feed themselves and pay the mortgage like everybody else. Even the ones who agree with us can’t afford to be seen agreeing with us. Nobody, literally nobody, wants to be a martyr for no reason.

>Right now we live in a world where Penguin Books can’t even publish baby food for Boomers in adult diapers (e.g. Jordan Peterson’s latest self-help book) without half of their Zoomer staff going apeshit and cutting themselves to emotionally blackmail their bosses into stopping publication. If someone as profitable and culturally useless as Jordan Peterson has problems getting published by Penguin, then there’s probably no hope for you as a writer in the modern publishing world.
https://mansworldmag.online/building-an-army/

There's something to this argument, and it partly explains why there haven't been any piercing novels about social issues for years now.
If you write from a left-wing perspective the result is some laughable "muh Drumpf" bullshit like Stephen King's latest book. If you write from a right-wing perspective you don't get published. If you're a centrist artist you look like a confused pussyfooter in the vein of Oliver Anthony. This cultural drought goes beyond literature and music though, it defines the entire post-2010 period.

>>20932360
>county has three different libraries
>they're all different with no interoperable system
I can't wait to get out of this shithole

>>17516214
Can you tell me why the story of the Night Journey is so ridiculous to you when tales divine miracles are common throughout Abrahamic theology?

>have a complete series of books on a shelf
>it's a mix match of hard cover books and paperbacks
>some of them have mismatched art work because some are first prints and some are reprints
I really hate this. Kinda makes me wanna toss them all out and just buy all of one type

>>14349661
You are not wrong. This was the best board on the website and now it's ruined. It is the pseudointellectual newfags from /pol/; leaking and infecting the entire website. We used to get by just fine during earlier waves of infections with the usual means of elitism, but now we're outnumbered by this filth believing that this is what /lit/ is supposed to be. We can't even discuss Lolita (a novel which regularly appeared in the top 10 of /lit/'s top 100 books of the year) anymore without the thread filling with cries about "that it's garbage and just ((())) and the lefts plan to normalize pedophilia" by people who obviously have not read it.
I don't know what we are supposed to do, as stated above, it used to be a slow board so I believe we barely have any moderation because we have not needed it before.

>>14345553
>tfw Bloom never read Gene Wolfe

We know he loved Crowley, so he was open to fantasy and science fiction. Why didn't he read Wolfe, bros? He would have loved him.

Threads like this make me wish /pol/ wasn't so full of fucking morons. This thread probably properly belongs on /pol/, but there's no way it would ever have this level of discussion if it was made there.

>>12872366
SHIT FART CUM
BRAAAAAAAAAPPP
BIG PENINS HAHAHA
BALS

literature professors: my god genius

>>12634972
Read Les Miserables

Every time I go to watch porn I think of Fantine and die a little inside

>>12591432
The thought of Molyneux being considered a "philosopher" is deeply depressing to me. Is this what we've come to in the West?

STEMfag trying to read Ulysses atm with annotations, chapter summaries, and color commentary from Joseph Campbell. Actually making pretty good progress. I bring all four books to my lectures and can make good progress late at night and on the weekends. It's early in the semester though so I might sadly have to stop soon :( it's way more fun than my classes

F#A# > Lift your skinny fists
Regardless composition-style postrock is for college sophomores. We all go through our gybe/mogwai phase at some point and move on to better music

>>12086872

Lasch: The True and Only Heaven is his masterwork and the best sourced work he writes.

Ignore The Minimal Self, it's less focused than the rest of his work and IIRC focuses heavily on millenarianism and survival which isn't really that astute a choice of central theme.
RE other works:

Read Heinz Kohut, "The Analysis of the Self" next, he's very good on narcissism.

George Scialabba is also very good on Lasch in his reviews, so check out this:

http://georgescialabba.net/mtgs/archive-by-title.html

Also the blog "The Last Psychiatrist" is surprisingly good (but defunct) on narcissism and cultural criticism. There are god knows how many articles on there, it'll keep you busy for weeks. In particular "Wrong About Obama" has aged magnificently and been proven basically right by history:

https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2009/01/wrong_about_obama.html

https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2010/03/wrong_about_obama_ii.html
https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/

>>12086933

Ignore this, Twenge has no idea what narcissism is. TLP did a good piece on this:

https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2010/08/narcissism_run_rampant.html

Without craftsmanship, inspiration is a mere reed shaken in the wind.

What are some books on coming to terms with your intellectual and creative limitations?

>>11966518
I think memorizing can aid in comprehension. When I unwittingly recite poetry to myself at work and in the shower and so on, I often find things out that I wouldn't have when labouring over the written text. It's also nice to have an inner library of verse wherever you go. I think if poem means something to you, it's worth memorizing.

Post literature that motivated you and helped stomp your depression and anxiety.

>>11911921
not him, but I walk around with an s3 that gets drained to hell if I open up the wifi, so it's mostly an offline phone,

the answer is, surprisingly fine

>>11909183
they are good, I read master and margarita in my native language and hated it, later I reread it and german and loved it much more,

I've read dosto, tolstoy, gogol, lermontov and probably some others in german as well, have not much to complain about

I just wrote 1500 words diary entry in one sitting. Went kinda all in on some stuff. After that I came back to my daily task and I felt a feeling of strangeness overcome me, can't precisely explain it, but things started to feel kinda foreign for a brief moment.

>>11900772
one more year and I'll become you

>>11890365
I'm not much informed when it comes to that case, apart from watching 15 minutes of John Oliver who had a lively audience against the "evil rapist." So what happened? He raped her in HS or tried to rape her in HS? What's up with America being so degenerate when it comes to the topic of sex?

>>11874589
If you think you knew something better when you were younger then you should dig deeper into it and see what you can find. Age doesn't always equal wisdom.