/lit/ - Literature

Hi anons,

In the midst of this pandemic, what are you reading and what are your thoughts on it? Do you have a laid-out reading plan for after you finish your current project?

Let's have a friendly, respectful, and - most of all - productive prose, poetry, and rhetoric thread.

I'm currently reading The Iliad (Fagles translation); it's the beginning of my "foundation of all fine fiction" project. I will follow with The Odyssey, of course, and then move on to Hesiod's "Theogeny" and "Works and Days." In terms of broad strokes, I will also study the Bible and ultimately finish with Shakespeare, at which point I will have covered amassed the knowledge I would like to seriously begin producing my own work(s).

As far as The Iliad goes - it's brilliant so far (about 165 pages in). I love the dramatic irony set up in the very beginning regarding Achilles' hamartia (rage). I am also enjoying the strong amount of repetition as it drives home just how the Homeric tradition of oral narration kept itself perpetuated. The constant similes are also a pleasure as they often contain brilliant imagery that gives the reader a glimpse into the culture of the time, what with all the calls to nature's beauty and wrath.

My one point of concern so far - and it's a personal issue, not a literary critique - is how difficult it is to keep track of all the names that Homer lays out while setting up his scenes, particularly when it comes to the preparations of war. There is simply no way to retain the names of all the heroes and lands from whence they came and the historic events they participated in on an initial read - but I'm sure Homer's contemporary audiences didn't have that issue. To them, I imagine it was the equivalent of our cult of personality and geographical knowledge of (at least) our own countries now.

Overall, I am loving the work and look forward to seeing how the pettiness of the Gods drives the black fates of men.

What are you up to? Again, I want to stress that this thread is not limited to fiction; poetry, philosophy, and all other forms of the written word and abstract are warmly welcomed to the discussion. I simply ask that we have an insightful discourse to better ourselves.

Hi anons,

In the midst of this pandemic, what are you reading and what are your thoughts on it? Do you have a laid-out reading plan for after you finish your current project?

Let's have a friendly, respectful, and - most of all - productive prose, poetry, and rhetoric thread.

I'm currently reading The Iliad; it's the beginning of my "foundation of all fine fiction" project. I will follow with The Odyssey, of course, and then move on to Hesiod's "Theogeny" and "Works and Days." In terms of broad strokes, I will also study the Bible and ultimately finish with Shakespeare, at which point I will have covered amassed the knowledge I would like to seriously begin producing my own work(s).

As far as The Iliad goes - it's brilliant so far (about 165 pages in). I love the dramatic irony set up in the very beginning regarding Achilles' hamartia (rage). I am also enjoying the strong amount of repetition as it drives home just how the Homeric tradition of oral narration kept itself perpetuated. The constant similes are also a pleasure as they often contain brilliant imagery that gives the reader a glimpse into the culture of the time, what with all the calls to nature's beauty and wrath.

My one point of concern so far - and it's a personal issue, not a literary critique - is how difficult it is to keep track of all the names that Homer lays out while setting up his scenes, particularly when it comes to the preparations of war. There is simply no way to retain the names of all the heroes and lands from whence they came and the historic events they participated in on an initial read - but I'm sure Homer's contemporary audiences didn't have that issue. To them, I imagine it was the equivalent of our cult of personality and geographical knowledge of (at least) our own countries now.

Overall, I am loving the work and look forward to seeing how the pettiness of the Gods drives the black fates of men.

What are you up to? Again, I want to stress that this thread is not limited to fiction; poetry, philosophy, and all other forms of the written word and abstract are warmly welcomed to the discussion. I simply ask that we have an insightful discourse to better ourselves.

>Not reading Guévola

>>14327241
>woman supposedly having emotional reaction
>filming herself doing it

>>13618585
>Do you think it makes sense to call Barack Obama a Kenyan? Because it doesn't. If he went back to Kenya, all the Kenyans he met would overprice their goods because he has no idea Kenyans engage in haggling.

Are there any books about memes and the deeper philosophy behind them?

This video got me wondering:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aaz4jdlqhSk&list=WL

I've already read Kill All Normies by qt Angela Nagle but that was more history and sociology/psychology than philosophy.

>have whole day free and open
>outside the sun is shining, weather is pleasant, sky is clear
>when I look out the window a lovely breeze sweeps across my back yard
>grab a book and a drink and head outside for a comfy read
>sit down on the patio
>immediately hear idiot neighbor blaring their tv from their back porch
>yes, a tv on their back porch
>immediately go back inside and get back on 4chan

What books deal with the existential dilemma that is life in the suburbs?

>Not reading Ciopenhauer

>when you realize that you share the same board with monolinguals

>crtl+f "my diary"
>0 results

What has this board come to?

thanks dog i've boughed recently enough books to keep me busy +2 years before dollar went up

are you buying brand new books OP?

>spend decades in literature departments re-interpreting and doing botched readings of literature and philosophy
>shit-talk your political opponents, psychologize all of their positions to discredit them
>extrapolate minuscule things, no model is neutral, every structure has consequences
>like dude, family is actually fascism, mmkay?
>design elaborate mental gymnastics to support your subversive attempts
>queering the this, queering the that
>interpret anything written by a being with a vagina as feminist literature
>2015, weak frail depressed leaf psychology professor who gets incapacitated by cider somehow gets famous
>he has an unorthodox reading of Nietzsche
>lightly shit talks some people like Derrida
>hhaha Xd silly Peterson that's not what Nietzsche REALY meant
>xd xd look at him he actually portrays Derrida as someone who had clear political goals, WHO WOULD DO SUCH A THING? silly Peterson that's not actually the kosher reading of them. it's was all just innocent observations

explain this.

>>11737500
>Freud is your guy.

>>11636733
>The only one “attaching” themselves to a trend is you

Do you ever think about how there is a combination of words you could use for a particular situation to get X or to make X happen?

I often think about this. Let's say you need something from someone... there exists a perfect combination of words you could use which you get you it, which would make them agree, or feel a certain way so as to cave to your demands, or whatever. Same for anything, it could apply to anything. Like there is a perfect combination of words that if you found them, they would make you the greatest writer on Earth, etc.

>yet another "it's all /pol/'s fault" thread
>not realizing that it's actually reddit's fault

>academicism
>”art”

>walk into Barnes & Noble
>rap music playing loudly on speakers; impossible to focus on reading something
>75% of the store is "gifts and collectibles"
>in-store Starbucks probably pays the store's bills
>only books promoted are Strong Empowered Women You Should Worship, Star Wars, or Trump Something Something
>selection of actual /lit/ books gets smaller and smaller every season

When will it end?

Same question here.

>walk into bookstore
>pop music with loud, sassy mulatto woman vocals is blaring
>walk out

What in the ever-lovin' FRICK happened to Barnes & Noble?

>yfw time doesn't actually exist

>>10715066
>anti-Semetic

>>10712467
>These people believe that Jesus Christ came and absolved us of our sins (good), and that he was the last prophet to come

Paul? John the Revelator? The finality of Christianity is in the fact that Christ's death and resurrection was the final blood sacrifice necessary to atone for sin, the blood of a mortal lamb will cover sins for a time, but the blood of immortal God willingly shed will cover sins forever.

>You just have to understand that the idea that religion should be about a being (God) who isn't an interactive concurrent force with humanity is flawed

Yeah it is flawed, which is why it isn't part of Christian belief, what Christians claim that God doesn't interact with the world? Maybe the claim is that there are no more prophets today - which is reasonable since there is no need for any more prophets as the whole revelation of God is contained within the Bible. That's not the same as claiming that God doesn't interact with the world.

Regarding the wrathful nature of God in the OT, just because the NT doesn't focus primarily on God's wrath doesn't mean it has disappeared or that Christians don't believe in a wrathful God. Read Revelation if you want to see what God's apocalyptic wrath will look like. The NT focuses on the loving, forgiving nature of God more specifically because that is what it's about - the redeeming, forgiving work of God through Christ's sacrifice. Nothing in there contradicts or undermines the OT. The OT has plenty of content describing the loving and forgiving nature of God, read the Psalms. OT has more historical content regarding the building and tearing down of nations over centuries, which is one reason why there is more violence. Whereas NT focuses on individuals in one place at one time. There are still instances of God's wrath in the early church, see Ananias and Sapphia. God is both loving and wrathful, the creator of all existence and the originator of 'love' and 'wrath' obviously perfectly understands both emotions (and more).

>>10650764
Good for her? Is there a point to this thread.