/lit/ - Literature

>>15977708

Would it be in bad taste to write an imagined elegy for someone who hasn't passed away?

This painting, to me, is the visual definition of despair.

Recommend books that give you an interesting and captivating introduction into a field, Like Psychology 101, Design 101, physics 101, biology 101,econ,etc.
Bonus points if they awoke inside of you a deep passion for a field of study.

>>15534645
it is no mystery that there are many who feel no social cohesion. I know people who do reach out, do community involvement volunteering and whatnot, I've often found that such things are incredibly benign and the act of reaching out to help through activism and donations, volunteering, social justice are completely fruitless. I've seen these types fondle away endlessly at such ideas, how to increase outreach how to help others but ultimately it is up to the individual whether they wish to be helped or see themselves in shackles of their own making. Africa is such a perfect example of this. All of that aid, billions upon billions for years and years, for what? There is no sufficiency in those states, there is no independence. But year after year, enthusiastic people such as yourself think they will be the ones who can make people good including yourself. No man or women is good, such things are lies people build themselves with, lies to make them fall. The young men you talk ill of. They are incredibly lost told not to be men when that is their very nature. Such is the crisis of the modern world. In past tyrants downfalls were those of despotism and violence. Now it is blinding optimism and enthusiasm

Do you guys remember books you've read? Like can you recall the names of characters in a book you've read within the past 2 years? Or even like basic plot points? I feel I like I have an easier time remembering the plot of movies than I do with reading. Like I can barely remember the titles of the books I read two years ago, let alone the basic plot.

>>10043795
you sure are a rude cunt for someone that wants to discuss something so basic. i get that you're angry that someone likes something you don't but your arguments really don't apply to art. if something so basic like taste in fruit is relative than something extremely complex, like what constitutes better art, is going to be almost impossible to qualify in that most art is simply incomparable. not to mention the fact that you shouldn't measure art on how pleasing to the eye it is, rather the intensity of the feeling it produces. Which as you say is subject to environmental factors; so for something like pic related, someone with a relatable experience is going to have a stronger opinion on the piece than someone without. ultimately leading to the idea that you can't accurately compare this piece to >>10043613 and say that one is better than the other

>>9538877
This is disgustingly kitsch. You may as well be inspired by a greeting card.

For those who don't know what kitsch is, it's essentially art derived from a decision to depict a sentiment. Not a desire to express a sentiment.

Here the decision to depict a sentiment led to the choice of conventionally sad subject matter, but of the least offensive kind, since the only point is to say "sad, grief" without any baggage whatsoever.

This is what "sad, grief" looks like when it's not swaddled in middle class, house-wifely cotton. The artist dwelt on a subject for a while, had a real feeling for it, then decided to paint it, or maybe started painting and later realised the historical incident what he was painting reminded him of. It's not necessarily a great painting, but it is not kitsch.

I'm not sure your artist has ever seen a sheep in person.

>>8868102
>This encapsulates the nature of war, view the enemy as increasingly otherly and then, only at the end, understand and commiserate with them.

i was responding to this. i mentioned what you wrote above, and only wanted to point out that hector is still dead; troy will fall; priam will die; andromache and her son will die or be enslaved; and those horrors of war which you say are redeemed are not. it IS bittersweet, but the bitter overpowers the sweet.

the last line, which i think goes like:
>and so they buried hector, breaker of horses
defies the idea of a redemptive achilles you put forward. hector is dead, and cannot tame and train horses, and with him, neither can any of the trojans. i think breaker of horses is a general trojan epithet as well, but i'd have to look it up.

cheers: the iliad is maybe my favourite work of literature to discuss.

>>8463555
does op's pic remind anyone of pic related?

>>8382524
has anyone else experienced true sadness? to ride through a journey of wailing solitary tears, when you think of every pain and little sorror that has ever afflicted you, all alone? it's incredibly cathartic. after some tough thoughts about my family and my life, which by the way, is not especially problematic, i cried in the bunk i was staying in and weeped hard into my pillow.

after some time, i think a sort of joy peeked through and i began smiling through this ugly mess of salt and wet skin, and what i think were anti-bodies surged into my being and i felt genuine, absolutely genuine pleasure.

after all that, i could think a lot more clearly, and i had a bit more insight on the problems i was facing, despite being incredibly tired at the time. sadness is inherent in humanity, so why try and obstruct it? the tears and sorrow are only the one mile mark of a long redemptive process, after which you feel almost reborn, from this sort of emotional metamorphosis.

it's somewhat of a shame that crying is seen as feminine, or ugly in a way. it's a shame, though in all honestly i don't like to see anybody do it; it's a personal process, and as much as i hate to rail on the 21st century and its innovations, the constant need for validation and comfort hurts us overall. instead of using tunnel vision to ease our sorrows with notifications and what some redditors call eye-bleach, let's all agree to cry, to let out some redemptive and blindingly insightful tears, to help us out.

cry! cry! cry! now! do it! think of your father and mother and their hopes and dreams and even more so, the hopes and dreams of everyone you do and do not know, let the tears slick down the crevices of your face, into the licks of your beard and the corners of your mouth. it will feel good.

also, everyone itt should try wanking without pornography. it helps to ground yourself, and to force yourself into a sort of contemplative and all-revealing sensation post-orgasm. cheers, friends!

>>8376192
btw, i recommend reading dostoyevsky for looking into the specifics of this sort of thing. notes from underground is a great start. fyodor casts a fucking gorgeous onslaught on nihilists and the same sort of defeatist and anti-humanity-based outlook a la your post. demons, crime and punishment, and brothers k should be on everyone's essential reading lists.

context: something like a coming of age story in the works. i had the idea of starting with this, and then transitioning to the dream, and then flashing back to the events which preceded it, but it's more or less some rough prose and some 3 quarters baked concepts at this point.

is starting with the calamitous and emotional 'bed thoughts' as below, then transitioning to earlier in the day a gimmick? non-linear plot has been incredibly overdone, but I would like to, if the whole thing works, end on a humorous, rather than painfully sad and tragic, note.

need prose tips, also my descriptions. i have a bad habit of combining words. ex. nightblack, starsprent, legtremble, whatever. linguistic fuckery i'm not sure i can pull off. harsh critiques would be nice.


>Cormac’s heart was a rainless storm; the drunk and humid trembling of his body would not allow his tears to fall, for he remembered a distant October morning when his father told him: “A man mustn’t cry.” Still, his chest was hot and it puffed in swells set to the chaos time of a convulsion. After sometime, after coming through a feeling of constant freefall, the static vertigo ended. His thoughts of a bloodred rain; of a deep physical sorrow; and a not-altogether sincere wish that his family wasn’t his own; these dark webs of thoughts that drowned his wish for daylight came to an end. In his hazy halfsleep, he thought of a family unplagued by drink, and seeing this, he thought of his own family, revised and abridged from sadness. The idea brought a tearful and flushed smile. He was aware of his ugliness at this moment, and he fell into uneasy dreams wrapped in his bedsheet tempest, knowing his brother was behind him on the loveseat, sipping from a short glass and running his hands through his hair.

When the day is over
and you are alone in bed
imagine yourself in a rocket
fleeing the earth of its last troubles
think of all you fear, and all you see
and stare blankly as they fade like dying trees
and the only thing that remains is her halo
and the ivory contours of her face
remember this face
and know these times will haunt you forever
for there is no more beautiful a thing
than when she would dance and sing
and keep her picture in a place clean and free from sin
because you'll never see anything like her again

Imagine that someone commits a terrible sin. Genuinely feeling an immense remorse, the person tries to find Jesus and to redeem its sin by acting as a good christian. Despite all the effort, its remorse is so immense that the person commits suicide.

My question is: according to Christianity, does this person deserve the salvation? If the person only tried to compensate the sin the answer probably would be "yes", but how the suicide affects its morality in the eyes of God?

What is a good edition of The Sorrows of Young Werther?