/lit/ - Literature

so ive read like 20 vonnegut books by now and theres something about the way he writes that i just love so much, but im almost out of books

was looking for recs of similar authors, could be similar in tone or in just the way he writes just something similar i guess

Everything was beautiful,
and nothing hurt.

Vonnegut

>read Slaughterhouse Five for my junior year thesis
>discussing the book in advanced literature
>chick in my class is completely convinced Yon Yonson is a character in the book
>argue with her in class
>still convinced Yon Yonson is a character

How do people like this exist

after a life of reading and acquiring knowledge, one is ready to read Finnegans wake

tis a cherry on top of the sunday of life

Has anyone else finished reading?

I've read pynchon (v, gravitys rainbow, against the day, mason and dixon)
don quixote
David wallace (infinite jest, pale king)
War and Peace
Brothers karamazov; crime and punishment
Portrait of the artist as a young man.

only book i kinda feel like i should've read is Ulysses.

Howdy there /lit/. This is my first time here, so please inform me if I violate any social norms. The other boards of 4chan have become a bit tiring to me and I would like to seek refuge here before the remainder of my brain turns into mush.
So! For my first post in /lit/, I would like to put this question forth to you. How did this man personally change your life, and through which work? For me, it was definitely Cat's Cradle. It helped me understand the power of an idea, regardless of the scientific validity behind that idea. The books of Bokonon were bald-faced lies, without any sort of facade trying to pose as anything other than falsehood. However, the things they said and lessons they taught became valid once the readers decided to apply them into their own lives. It just goes to show that there is more to life than fact and reason, and that men can be changed forever by one bald-faced lie.

RIP in piece.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO1rMeYnOmM
Here's Jim Croce, he'd be able to appreciate this situation.

>>2658810

I most certainly do. You write poorly. You are irresponsible. You think that you can write an acceptable essay without reading the book in question, which is only possible in the lower grades, where expectations (and intelligences) are low. You leave your work for the last minute. Finally, and most unforgivably, you willfully neglected reading a book that would be a valuable asset to you. I say that you cannot be in any higher grade level because no one in higher grades would be in a class that required reading this sort of work if they did not intend to read the course material.

So either you are a sophomore (or a freshman), or you are an imbecile. I will let you choose which persona you want to adopt for the purposes of this discussion.

Slaughterhouse. It's a little more indicative of his general style, and I believe that it has a more accessible message. Breakfast of Champions is more oriented towards the established Vonnegut fans.

>>2608303

You do not have themes in a book without a message. It is that simple. If you happen to stumble across a theme about which the author has no clear message, then that theme is entirely in the eye of the beholder. In other words, it is coincidental and imagined.

In that case, what she is effectively saying is that Collins simply came up with ideas and then rambled about them for a few hundred pages. That is nonsense, and she is only hurting Collins' reputation as a writer.

>>2592420

/lit/ is the least autistic board on 4chan. We're slightly uptight, but that's because we actually read. We're not autistic because we actually value the intrinsic properties of a piece of writing, as opposed to its organization, style or medium, like /mu/ with their obsession with obscurity. We're also fairly open-minded compared to the other boards. /fa/ might have us beat there, though, due to the transient nature of their primary topic of discussion.

People who cannot write competently should not be taken seriously when discussing religion.

Shameless self bump

what about Kurt Vonnegut, I seen from Wikipedia that he deals with some critical questions poses humanity. Anyone have any experience with any of these authors?

I'm looking for a short story I read a while back; I think it was written by Kurt Vonnegut. The story involved the concept of 'forced equality'. If you were beautiful you had to wear an ugly mask. The more beautiful you were, the uglier the mask to even it out. If you were strong, you had to wear a bag full of led balls to inhibit it. The story takes place with a wife and husband watching a news report. Eventually their son shows up revolting against it, he eventually gets killed by the person who is in charge of enforcing these rules. [It may very well not be by Kurt, it's just the only name I have to associate with it.]

Alright, so I chose to do Vonnegut for an English paper. Anyone one want to help me pick a book by posting summaries? Thank you.

>>1933835
+1

>>1878650
>mfw nothing by Kurt Vonnegut is on there.

Lol Slaughterhouse-Five