/lit/ - Literature

Give me some obscure poets. I've finished my MFA in Poetry and would like to experience something new.

>>10754681
Are you familiar with Nael’s The Tiger?

>>10754691
Yes.
YES.

>>10754691
https://vocaroo.com/i/s0WjSkikqy5K

Are there any books that will make me think the world is not such a terrible place?

Is anyone here religious? Spiritual in some aspect? What do you believe?

I'm tired of being a skeptical, ungrounded agnostic. It's painful, dark and lonely.

>>10754985
Go to church just for the experience. Learn the different reasons people have for doing it.

>>10754958
I know it's unpopular, but I first felt this way after reading LOTR back in middle School. There's that line about the little goods keeping back the evil, as well as the company actually being compelled by virtue and an absolute right way to conduct themselves.

>>10754985
See >>10755070
He has the right idea. I would recommend taking to a pastor. They usually have some answers to a lot of questions you may have that they have already considered. Also remember that a few people in every group are a bit weird, so it it doesn't work the first few times just go to different churches for a few weeks. Bonus points if you mix up denominations.

>>10755070
>>10755161
Thank you both. I actually plan to attend a Unitarian Universalist service soon, we'll see how it goes.

In "The Myth of Sisyphus", Camus says "what counts is not the best living but the most living". What does he mean by this? And, if a focus on quality of life supported by some code of ethics limits the amount one can live, how can he can condemn doing harm unto others?

>>10755234
dude, i had this rad dubstep track on my old mp3 player i used for running (uk dubstep not faggy wescoast shit) that had a joseph campbell sample where he's all like "people say we're searching for meaning in our lives, the meaning of life, no, i say people are searching for the experience of being alive" BOOOOM WUBWUBWUB it was p gud desu

Are there any good websites to post fan fiction? Is there a website where there's a chance my fanfic will be read by a few people if I post it?

>>10755244
Fanfiction.net, Archiveofourown, Wattpad, etc...

>>10755234
I haven't read the Myth of Sisyphus in its entirety, but I've read parts of it as well as the Stranger and some of his various essays so take my opinion with a grain of salt.
The core of Camus' philosophy is that life is absurd and completely devoid of meaning. Unlike Sartre who says we should create our own meaning, Camus claims that one should embrace the absurd. Because of this, one no longer lives life for a purpose, but lives for its own sake.
To go back to the quote: "what counts is not the best living but the most living". Since life is about living for its own sake despite the absurd, the most living is what matters. If ones focuses on the best living it attributes a purpose to it and thus strays from the absurdist view on life.
I don't think this quote is an important part of his philosophy, it should probably be considered just as a way of highlighting certain parts of it (not that his philosophy is especially complex though).

Do you guys read more during the week? I wake up before work, shower and read for like an hour, sometimes I wake up earlier to read uninterrupted for 2 hours. It's great.

Somehow though when Saturday and Sunday come around and I have a whole day to go wild I can barely sit still for 30 minutes.

>>10755287

Living for life's sake doesn't actually mean anything on its own. It only gains meaning contrary to having the best living. It's as if Camus is saying one doesn't need a code of ethics because a belief in morals is baseless (that is because if there's no God, there's no universal morality) and limits the most living. The consequence of which is scary if it allows harmful acts to be done unto others in the name of most living.

>>10755343
One of the most common criticisms of absurdism is that Camus never explains why we should embrace the absurd.
However you're misinterpreting what he means by "most living". He simply means a life according to one's own unimpeded will. Yes, this may sometimes mean people will be committing atrocious acts. However it's not a justification, rather a statement of there being no justification against it.
Absurdism is an answer to nihilism and existential dread, not moral problems. If you're looking for a justification of morals in answer to nihilism you should probably look into philosophers like Kierkegaard or Kant instead.

>>10754985
Don't believe everything you hear or read when getting into any religion--one of the prime experiences you can have is using the material to come up with your own personal beliefs.
People will tell you religions are about gods, but religions are really about people. Learn how to treat people well and they will learn to treat you well.

>What are some good sites for reading philosophy articles other than plato.stanford?
https://www.iep.utm.edu/

>>10755610
Thanks

The candidate announced, "If I am elected,I will improve the school education."

Stupid question, but how do I convert this to indirect speech? There is lot of argument between my friends whether it should be 'he were' or 'he was'.

>>10755320
Keeping to a schedule is easier for most people than forcing yourself to do specific things. Schedule out Saturday and Sunday, and after about two weeks it should be fixed.
>>10756309
"Was" is for things that actually happened, "were" is for conditionals/wishful thinking. Thus, "if I were there" is correct, and "I was there" is correct. In this case it would be "we're", as it is a conditional. Basically, if "if" proceeds it, it is always "were".

should I read Godot or watch a play?

What program do you guys use to read epubs? Adobe Digital Editions has a nice UI but it is a piece of shit in so many other ways that I can't stand another day of using it. Please help.

Is it ok to store books in the garage or is it too cold?
My bookshelf broke and I need to temporarily relocate them

What are some books similar to the monogatari series (except for the light novels by Nisioisin)?

>>10756864
put them under ur bed

Is the oxford world classic quran good? Is it biased? Is it even possible to translate the quran unbiasedly?

What translation of Henrik Ibsen's stuff is best?

>>10757046
No. Yes. Read The Study Quran instead as it offers multiple viewpoints in the commentaries.

>>10756785
Try Calibre.

>>10757180
>2000 pages

Oh my. But thanks for the req!

What all do I need to read before trying to read The Divine Comedy?
I would guess that I would have to ready the Iliad, The Odyssey, and the Aeneid. What else should I add to this list?

I've read Ficciones by Borges and didn't like all the fictional essays and reviews. The story about the Chinese spy and the detective one were grest thought. Can someone tell me which collections rely more on "real" stories and less on those essays?

>>10758117
The Divine comedy stands fine on it's own. You don't need to read anything prior, just try to figure out what Dante is trying to teach you with each canto.

Do you usually read one book at a time until you're done with it or multiple books?

>>10756701

Read first. It's extremely rare for productions to do it justice

>>10757033
The only thing I remember about monogatari is the huge amounts of dialogue and its strangeness.
Try reading absurdist plays by Ionesco, and to a lesser extent Beckett.

>>10754681
Are you a fan of Joanna Newsom? Bobbo Dyl? Cohen? Not at all obscure unfortunately but I feel like poetry today is mostly in the form of music

>>10754985
I'm Catholic; any questions?

>>10754985
Spirituality and Mysticism need to be purged. Fuck those faggots with healing stones

Are there any poems dedicated to the first humans to live? If so please PLEASE share, if not then fuck.

>>10759250
Were you raised Catholic? If not, when and how did you find Catholicism?

I was raised Catholic but never really enjoyed it (granted, I was extremely young). Like a good portion of folks I became uninterested in religion and God as whole and purged it from my life. After so many years, I wouldn't say that any of that dismissal of religion helped, considering my current plea to find something spiritual/mystical/greater-than-myself.

Science and humanism and all that bullshit just don't cut it for me; it's not enough. I suppose the real question is if I can find the faith in myself to believe in a higher power.

Is there anyone here that has gone from an agnostic or atheistic worldview to a worldview that includes some sort of higher power? Talk to me about that.

What is it called when you write something that has several intentional layers of meaning?

I initially thought 'subtext', but to me that implies only one alternative meaning. Is there a better word, or can 'subtext' imply multiple alternatives?

>>10759294
What, like Genesis in poetic form?

what's a good book on prosody and other elements of linguistics? been wanting to actually broaden my horizons with the english language

>>10760107
i wish i could believe in a higher power, but it just seems like paranoia imaging there is some unseen force behind everything, as far as i can see only karma is real

I've read the P&V translation of Crime and Punishment twice now, and I want to read another translation to compare them.
Any suggestions?

>>10754985
The universe is an open mystery and science is trying to solve it in the way that a person with a protractor tries to "solve" the Amazon rainforest by measuring every rock and stick he finds

Metaphysics is currently broken and no one knows what the fuck to do. Scientific metaphysics is completely arbitrary and only tells you how to better control matter and predict how it will flow into your measuring and controlling machines, but not actually what matter "is" or any deeper truths about it. There hasn't been any great leap in understanding since Einstein.

We are more justified than ever right now in asking big questions and being completely open minded about what the real "stuff" or "purpose" of "reality" might be. There are all kinds of efforts underway right now to experimentally rehabilitate teleology, vitalism, metaphysics in general.

Just read William James. There's a consummate scientist who was also completely undogmatic and completely open-minded about what the purpose and nature of reality might be. He is what 20th century science should have looked like, if it hadn't been for industrialized disenchanted science that only cares about enslaving dead matter.

>>10760649
equivoque

>trying to remember an inspiring Mishima quote
>it's about how foolish he was while young in prioritizing the mind over the body, intellect over the physical
>spend hours searching for it
>losing my mind
>can't find it
Does anyone know to what I refer? Will suck dick for help.

>>10761776
Thank you. Nice reply. I'll look into more James..I enjoyed Varieties of Religious Experience.

I need some good websites to make out the Divine Comedy. It seems like I'm too 89IQ to get most of the cantos.

>>10762216
This might be off the mark, but what you said made me think of
>At the point at which many people feel satisfied with the degree of intellectual cultivation they have already achieved, I was fated to discover that in my case the intellect, far from being a harmless cultural asset, had been granted me solely as a weapon, as a means of survival. Thus the physical disciplines that later became so necessary to my survival were in a sense comparable to the way in which a person for whom the body has been the only means of living launches into a frantic attempt to acquire an intellectual education when his youth is on its deathbed. The steel taught me many different things. It gave me an utterly new kind of knowledge, a knowledge that neither books nor worldly experience can impart. Muscles, I found, were strength as well as form, and each complex of muscles was subtly responsible for the direction in which its own strength was exerted, much as though they were rays of light given the form of flesh.

>>10759128
Thank you, these seem to be exactly what I am looking for.

>>10762982
not it but I appreciate the effort anon

>>10758117
The Bible and Ovid's Metamorphoses.

>>10760680
No. Like a poem or a novel about the life of the first humans who evolved to be home sapiens. Idk, maybe it's an original thought.

Has anyone else ever experienced an incredibly real-feeling crush on a fictional character?

I recently finished Infinite Jest and I found myself really strongly drawn to the character Don Gately. Every chapter he was in I read more slowly, taking in every detail more. Obviously I still enjoyed the rest of the book, but every time I would realize a passage was going to focus on him I got this strange pitter patter feeling in my chest. I found myself thinking about him and wanting to talk about him with my friends, even. It’s the strangest thing. Every passage I read he was in was so vivid. And even after finishing the book I find myself thinking about him. It’s almost like the stuff we find out about his childhood in the book was stuff he confided in me, and like my mind experienced a real attachment.

What to do with this feel?

>reading books from the 20th century
>authors always express a belief that we're going to enter a new golden age of philosophy and understanding

Am I just a brainlet or did this utterly fail to happen?

>>10764524
It didn't happen, but they were right to think it would

I have not ever read Pynchon, they do not teach him in Argentina. Is it okay to tackle in chronological order i.e. starting with Mason and Dixon then ending with Bleeding Edge?

>>10764565
who do I blame for this?

>>10764604
The end of the Cold War

>>10764654
When will that be?

how do i stop oogling women
i have a 9/10 girlfriend with whom i have a good sex life
but can't stop the compulsion to look and keep looking every chance i get

>>10764668
>confusing the cold war, the frigid period, and the arctic proem
Anon...

>>10764796
>forgetting the chilly-cold catastrophe

>>10764800
>leaving out the frosty fracas

>>10764811
>intentionally ignoring the polar prevarication

I'm brand new here and I want a good story to read. What should I pick up? I want to read something while listening to music. I don't have a favorite book either.

>>10764830

Two things, first one is easy:

I have an assignment and I need help deciding what to write about, choices are:

A) A kind of plant
B) A biography

Secondly, how do I improve my writing? I started getting paid to do some writing a few months ago. It started out fine enough, but after a while I got kind of bored and just, burned out. Aside from trying to get back in the routine, I would like to better myself as well.

>>10758132
El Aleph has fewer fictional essays. Brodie's Report uses a journalistic frame narrative (similar to Universal History of Infamy). The Book of Sand and Shakespeare's memory have none.

Product of the american public school system here, is there a name for the style of essay writing that's more similar to a dialog? Meaning that you address the reader, talk in first person, etc. I like it and think it works really well in certain contexts.

>tfw only thing you were taught about essay writing was "thesis statement -> three paragraphs -> conclusion"

>>10765160
Treatise

>>10765010
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaHahahahahaha i hate humanity hahahahahahahahaha kys

as someone who has never read any philosophical books, what should i read first?

>pic unrelated

>>10765177
Last Days of Socrates

>>10765170
faggot

>>10762216
It's literally on the first ten pages of Sun & Steel, whatever it is

>>10765010
Write about Goethe's primordial leaf and concept of the Urpflanze

>>10754958
East of Eden. Very good read.

>>10764705
don't watch porn. Your brain thrives off novel ideas and porn only makes you need more "newness"

>>10764830
Of Mice and Men. It's real short as well.

I don't know how to have my own personality. I have Asperger's. Whenever I read a book I attempt to emulate whichever character I favourite the most. Kind of like the "Drive" thing from /tv/, but I try not to do it autistically. It's more of the personality than quite literally everything.

How do I stop? It's kind of an obsession for me and after reading another I'll move on and repeat. Sometimes I'll go back to a prior character and attempt it.

I know that sounds stupid but I really don't know how to stop.

>>10765444
Why stop when you could become Edmond Dantes?

Question about translations:

I read French, but my native language is English. I obviously read French literature in the original, but I’ve been wondering if reading other Romance language works in French would be better than in English. For example, would a French version of Dante be more faithful than an English version?

What are some good detective novels? Like real gritty stuff

>>10765575

I just want to be myself.

>>10765178
The right answer

Got extra pay so I decided to buy the following books:
Faust
Lolita
Moby Dick
War and Peace
Don Quixote
Crime and Punishment
Brothers Karamazov
Discourses on the Livy
Any suggestions for which one I should start with?

>>10765590
Yes, but if you're not native it won't make a difference since most the nuances will be lost to you

>>10765848
Whichever you want lad. If you don't usually read classics possibly don quixote

I want to read Plato and start the greeks. How important is the Iliad and the Odyssey to understanding Plato?

Also, where should I start? I was considering The Republic. Translation suggestions would also be welcome.

I want to read all or at least most of William Shakespeare's work.
is this a good purchase?
https://www.fishpond.co.nz/Books/Complete-Works-of-William-Shakespeare-William-Shakespeare/9781631060243

Does anyone have that webm of a blonde teen girl stood near the beach? She’s messing with her phone and wearing almost nothing. I NEED to see it again pls

>>10767527
Fairly important. Plato makes numerous references to the Iliad and Odyssey in his works, as do a lot of other Greek philosophers. You're best off just reading those stories before continuing on with anything Greek because literally everybody loves Homer.

I'd recommend starting off with the trial of Socrates (Crito, Meno, Euthyphro, Apology) then Phaedo, then Republic, if only so you can get a good feel of Plato's work and beliefs before diving into The Republic

Thriller and spy novels are a major guilty pleasure of mine. I've read a lot of Clancy and liked some of the books very much, and generally I love Frederick Forsyth's writing too.
Now I'm trying to get into John le Carré, should I just read spy who came in from the cold and then the Karla trilogy, or should I read all the other Smiley books first before the Karla trilogy?

Is there a book that feels like this?

>>10768517
Natsume Sōseki - I Am a Cat

>>10768182

>>10765657
Bump

i have a friend that is remarkably adept at understanding politics, but at the same time not very "smart". What I mean by this is that when we talk about politics he's easily able to follow political theories and ideas, however I feel he would struggle and not get much out of reading something like Hobbes or Locke or others. He could understand the ideas, just not the reading, due to old english mainly.
That said, is there a "modern" or "locke for dummies" version of the second treatise of government that I could recommend to him? just something to introduce the ideas and concepts in a simpler manner? or does he just have to struggle through?
>inb4 friend is an idiot kek
boy just cant read to save his life, but im confident he would get the concepts

>>10768182
I have it and will try to post it later tonight or early next morning

I understand your pain but I warn you that your pain will only grow from looking at the webm

>>10769323
Pirate this or something like it
https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/the-modern-political-tradition-hobbes-to-habermas.html

Or use this
https://oyc.yale.edu/political-science/plsc-114

>>10767527
important. the Iliad and Odyssey outline a good amount of Greek culture, and there are a number of references to these not only in plato but in others. I'd also recommend Herodotus' histories, kinda the same deal here. the first compilation of history and mythos that gave the greeks a universal identity. you'll be fine without, but you'll do a lot better with even a skimming of these
>>10768341
also recommend this order, understanding plato before you dive into the republic helps a boatload

>>10758345
Multiple books, definitely (when reading nonfiction). I almost never worry about finishing a book (though I do finish some books), especially if it bores me or if it turns out that it's not about what I thought it was about, and I don't care about what it's actually about. Obtaining insights is more important to me than getting through a book, so I'm often switching between several books, or going back to reread certain parts of books I've already read.

>>10769335
Thanks pal. The sadness will be just about bearable.

>>10764705
You are asking how to overcome your biological hard-wiring. Although maintaining a relationship with one woman is the morally correct thing to do, men were not designed to do so. The only answer is to use your rationality to resist.

>>10769425
He's just desperately humble-bragging. Ignore him.

>>10754675
hypothetical question for a story I'm writing;
What could 15 year old you do what 25 year old you can't? Context doesn't matter, can be realistic or completely bizarre, physical or mental or whatever.

>>10769470
More flexible: foot behind head etc

Able to get away with more: I'd tell the bus driver that i forgot my bus pass but really need to get home and they'd let me ride for free every day

Could get a boner from hugging

Could play vidya for hours

Skinny as fuck, could slip through almost any gap

Less sensitive to cold

>>10769470
Socially things that would be unacceptable for a 25 year old to do, such as publicly flirting with another 15 year old. Getting away with shoplifting or trespassing when caught etc...

>can’t sleep
>guess i’ll read
>start to read
>feel sleepy

>>10769470
Trespassing. As a youth I would run through people's back yards to get to a secluded wooded area down the road and some ways in the wilderness.
Since becoming a legal adult I can't exactly traipse through someone's yard to go see the cool banks of the wooded creek without the police being involved

>>10768182
>>10769335
Have i been hoodwinked?