/lit/ - Literature

IJ was exactly what I expected it to be - heavily relatable to present day issues but attacking larger concepts as well. DFW's prose is hilarious (and dare I say beautiful). I liked it

Ulysses - this is the best thing I've ever read. It will make you feel things no other novel will accomplish

GR - haven't read this yet, but I've read M&D and IV. I dunno how to feel about pynchon, his novels seem more suited for film somehow. One of the greatest inventors of environment, though. I might give GR a shot this summer.

Any books about how wage slavery is actually a good thing? Most people who are really valuable aren't wage slaves, so it doesn't really matter if wage slaves spend 8, 9, or more hours doing work for someone else. Also, I like that wage slaves are prevented from using drugs (drug tests) by their bosses.

This is not bait. I believe in all of this.

Who is the single most leftwing writer in history? I don't want any mild milquetoast center-left Stalinists or dorky anarcho-liberals. I only want to be recommend the hardest, farthest, single most left writer to ever exist. I will accept nothing less.

>>11598366
I am going to write a novel called "Happy Birthday." It's about a middle-aged man who ends up stuck in a low-wage, low-prestige job after he is laid off from a high-salaried investment banking firm. He ends up soothing himself using kinky sex and drugs, and most of the novel is based on the thoughts that go through his head while on a high-dose LSD trip. One of those thoughts is "Why do women care so much about their birthdays?" It is followed by the realization that the only time people really pay attention to him is on his birthday. As the tale unfolds, I'd like to address the subtleties of gender politics, how we define ourselves sexually, and why a lot of men end up killing themselves (spoiler alert: the main character commits suicide at the end). I'd also like to say a few things about modern marriage, President Trump and those who loathe him, and 4Chan itself. One of the chapters is an essay on /b/. When it is finished, I plan on self-publishing it, and I do not expect it to catch fire, nor will I be upset if few people read it. I want to write something that is counter-cultural, that raises questions about how we think about ourselves in relation to others, and one that looks at modern manhood without writing off the dysfunctional behavior of a lot of men as "toxic" and calling it a day. Here is the first sentence:

>It only takes a second to start an unraveling.

Here is the last sentence:

>Please find your happiness elsewhere.

Here is an important sentence in between:

>Anything that melts down can be made into something better.

The main character gives himself one year to turn his life around after tripping hard on his birthday, and makes a promise to end his life if he doesn't. I'm giving myself one year from today, August 10, 2018, to publish it. If I don't.l, then I'm going to abandon my dream of writing instead of killing myself, because I don't want to end my life. I just want to change it. If it sounds like something you might like to read, send me an e-mail at

happybirthdaynovel@gmail.com

And I will send you a copy when it is finished. I can also send unfinished parts of it upon request if you want to give me feedback as I write it.

Somebody created this thread, and it helped me realize that a lot of people want to make changes in their lives, but we don't do it. I've walked around with this idea for years. Now I'm giving myself a deadline and letting myself know that if I don't do what I say I'm going to do...it's because I don't want to. This novel is going to be garbage. It's going to be shit. Well, at certain intervals, you have to take out the garbage, and a lot of people feel better after taking a shit. I am setting the bar low because I know I can do this. I need to find out if I really want to.

>>11459778

>You don't own the means of production if you actually have to sell your labour as a commodity where you don't perceive any of the surplus embbeded in it. You also don't sumbit willingly since you have to work for someone in order not to starve unless you already have a large sum of capital with which to begin an entreprise which would in turn exploit more workers. You are not free, you are a slave to the conditions created by the capitalist class, sorry mang.

Not the person you're arguing with, but how is this any different to any other economic model? By this logic you are also a slave to the state if you have to work for it in order not to starve. Also, slavery is a complete misnormer in this conversation; if the guy you are responding to has various options in order to gain income, then he is not slave, anymore than you are a slave to anything you need in life. Also, I don't see how you can argue he doesn't own his means of production if he has to sell it; it's his pregorative, if he didn't own it, it wouldn't be.

>>4765463
moxie: a love affair
mixture of meaning, the way it sounds and the way it looks good on paper