/lit/ - Literature

>>4478312
M8, I'm not fucking reading digital.
>the smell of real paper!1!!
Do people really say this? I just like it for the feel and because it's neat to be able to physically track your progess.

What are some life-affirming books? I'm sick of depressing bullshit.
I've heard Thus Spoke Zarathustra is like this, but I've never read any Nietzsche so I'm not sure I should tackle it.

>>4364680
i can not speak about Hegel, because hes a hack, but in Marx case, dialectics (historical materialist dialectic) it is a method of presentation, which works as follows: You have a concep, you split it into two things that seem mutually exclusive/not seem to go along with another/... and then combine it back into one, both-things encompassing thing.

For example, the first dialectic argument from marxens capital is

1. good or commodity (Ware)
2. Trade-Value (Tauschwert) and Use-Value (Nutzwert)
3. Value (=socially necessary labour time)

you have commodities, which seem to have some sort of value. They are traded (tradevalue), and they are used (usevalue). However, some things dont have usevalue at all, but seem to express tradevalue (you can sell your honor, pride, but you cant use them yourself), and vice versa (you cant trade away your beaten down car, its worthless, however it still transports you; tldr you couldnt sell it, but you can use it). So how do you come up with a theory of value that encompasses those two mutually exclusive dati in a way that is sufficiently scientific? He defines value as socially necessary labour time (the time that is socially necessary to produce the thing in question is its VALUE, later on in book 1 he explicitly includes everything that is implied in this, wear of the machines involved, education of the workers involved, etc ad infinitum; note the SOCIALLY NECESSARY: if a worker in china makes a car in 5 hours, and you can do it in 9 only, that makes your car still only worth 5 hours of labour)

he then of course proceeds with this method on the term VALUE. It is truly beautiful to read, to be honest.

Just switched into an English major. How fucked am I?

What does /lit/ consider to be the most important parts of the Western Canon? I was looking for a list and I'm curious what /lit/ thinks the definitive list is, if there is one.
Harold Bloom as publicly decried his own list, calling it a result of pressure from the publisher.

Are any of you regular buyers or subscribed to magazines? If so, which ones and why?

How to get people to read Socialist theory rather than most dismissing it offhand?

>>4140663

Halp /lit/

I'm being exploited by the owners of the means of production.

What do?