/lit/ - Literature

Wow, I didn't believe it at first but recent /lit/ is almost as terrible as /mu/.

Although I've only gotten through 200 or so pages of it, I'd so no. It's mostly a bombastic tirade against Parliamentarians, Jews, communism, etc. It is also very poorly written. There's tons of other books on nazi Germany that would help you much more than Mein Krap.

What are the best books about World War II or World War I?

There seems to be a clusterfuck of them out there and it's hard to parse which ones are worth reading and which aren't.

Here you go.

Hello /lit/,

Which of these would you recommend I read?

The Portrait of The Artist as A Young Man - James Joyce
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
Hard Times - Charles Dickens

For the one you choose, could you give reasons why you chose it?

I read the new translation from bantam books.

>>983803
AHAHAHAH

Criticism is worthless.
For one, the artist knows his faults in knowing what he wants to do, and what he didn't.

Two, it severs readers from really experiencing the work themselves, causing them to only think in the reviewer's terms.

Three, nothing needs to be anything. If someone sets out to do one thing, why disparage him for not doing another? That kind of approach leads to personal and cultural monotony, especially if the critic is widely respected.

Four, it discourages creative people from following their ambitions because they feel they have to meet the schizophrenic standards of criticism, which will blast something for being too simple and on the other too obtuse.

Five, it makes the critic's interpretations seem infallible or obvious (using their position as a critic) and intrinsic to the work, when it is likely complete neo-Freudian hash. Anyone with a biography and one of his works could guess Kafka took a lot of real-life elements and put them into his works, but the critic makes this semi-plausible guesswork out to be the clear truth when he knows no more than anyone else.

Six, and I hope I am not tiring you, in generalizing different types of writing and plot for example, it comes to overlook (or see as of second importance) all the details that give a work color and interest, calling things "typical" or generic when there is not a typical thing in the world.

Seven, it makes talent seem truly rare, limited to a few things, a few "great" works that tower, perfect, above the rest, but it doesn't work that way. After all, if there were a universal measuring pole everything could be compared against (and not just personal feeling) critics would not always be disagreeing so harshly.

Finally, it insults the intelligence of their readers to assume they need a critic's help to appreciate something.
Criticism is worthless.