/lit/ - Literature

What do you mean, OP?

I don’t read the editors note

>>10982152
I think there's nothing wrong with liberalism

i'm a purple prose

>>10982152
I regret reading because I don't see any practical use in it.
All seams so vapid, but at least I enjoy it most of the time till at a certain point I come to this realization...

>>10982188
Bet you don't even read the copyright you pleb

If a book has four prefaces then i don't read them all.

>>10982192
Read marx

>>10982152
I read for plot

>>10982196
>moans about something not being practical
>still wasting his time on 4chan

>>10982196
How is it vapid if you get something out of it? You’ve never read, for example, a novel with philosophical novels and felt something from it? That’s what art is. It invokes emotion and moulds our perspective.

>>10982152
I don’t believe Pynchon is worth reading. I’ve read CoL49, IV, Slow Learner, and V. As a result, I cannot justify reading GR, M&D, or AtD. He is too obfuscatory, too purple, too detached. I learned nothing from him and I don’t believe I will.

>>10982195
This bigtime

I’m a filthy nigger for superficially ornate prose

>>10982152
Theres a bit in One Hundred Years of Solitude (3/4 of the story) where the Buendía house it's populated mostly by women and it's so boring I had to use an audiobook to go through it.

until a week ago i've never read a book

>>10982208
Literally what turned me capitalist

>>10982152
i haven´t finished yet Edith Hamilton´s Mythology

>>10982254
>hi fellow redditors is rl stine too hard for a 28 yo who has never read?

>>10982208
I already have

>>10982257
How? I'm not even a commie, but the marxist critiques are incredibly accurate in my view. How can you defend the current model?

>>10982277
>marxist critiques are incredibly accurate in my view
>the LTV is accurate

>>10982292
The inaccuracy of the LTV does not break marxism. I'm doubting you've actually read him now.

>>10982306
Most of his critique is not even a critique of capitalism.

In a free capital market the distinction between workers and owners is meaningless as anyone can buy shares of the company for which he works.

“Alienation towards the product” doesn’t really mean anything, because 1) humans have been trading goods since the dawn of time, 2) employers don’t exploit employees by paying them in advance.

Collective ownership of the means of production leads inevitably to economic collapse.

I could go on all day but I have to study

>>10982220
I can't stop being a purple prose I love it too much pls help

>>10982152
Looks like the Mormon singer dude from The Killers.

>>10982364
Wym she’s hot

>>10982351
Well anon, I'm happy that you don't feel alienated. It really is easier that way.

>Collective ownership of the means of production leads inevitably to economic collapse.
It's never been tried. I know the centrists have turned "not true communism" into a meme, but it's true.

>>10982152
My foreskin is flaky and crusty. The problem is that I can't stop masturbating. I like ejaculating, but masturbating always results in an intense burning sensation, followed by bleeding. It's painful to walk because when my dick rubs against my underwear, strips of foreskin stick to the cotton and come off.

>>10982277
Capitalism is the current model? Really?

>>10982366
Well, he's a very appealing dude as well, but they do look alike.

>>10982371
Not that anon, but some of the forms of alienation that Marx describes are so abstract that it's hard to see how they could eventually cause the destruction of capitalist society. Like how if i were to bake a pie and then sell it to someone else, i am technically alienated from my product. But so what? The human organism (and all organisms, for that matter) have always lived in a state where such alienation is rampant. Marx said that man cannot face alienation until he has become master of nature, but that is simply not possible. You'll still have pain, you'll still have hunger and other needs that govern you, rather than you governing them. Such alienation is inevitable.

>>10982371
Or has it?

Doesn’t really matter, as the problem with collective ownership is first of all theoretical: if the means are not privately owned there are no incentives for people who want to make them more productive and who would otherwise acquire and put them to better use.

Meanwhile being as less efficient as possible is the most rational outcome for any worker, since the effect of a change in productivity aren’t nearly as individually felt as in a Capitalist system.

>>10982396
100%

>>10982396
>>10982422
Current mode is described as a mixture of Capitalism and Socialism. Depending on where you live you may have more of the former or more of the latter.

>>10982371
>It really is easier that way.
The smug, condescending tone of a know-nothing who thinks he knows it all.

>>10982427
>Current mode is described as a mixture of Capitalism and Socialism
Described by whom? Where?

>>10982410
>The human organism (and all organisms, for that matter) have always lived in a state where such alienation is rampant
Exactly anon. Marx's point is that we shouldn't have to, that we've advanced enough to throw away the old presuppositions.

>Marx said that man cannot face alienation until he has become master of nature
But it's already happened

>>10982438
Literally any university textbook.

>>10982446
And where is the socialist part exactly, according to "any university textbook"?

>>10982442
>Exactly anon. Marx's point is that we shouldn't have to, that we've advanced enough to throw away the old presuppositions.

But we don't. We're still material and biological creatures, which means we are the subject of forces beyond our will, which will lead to alienation.

>But it's already happened

Absolutely not. Disease is still here, hunger is still here, and the environment is not under our control. And even if all that were to come under our control, you could still see any biological and social urges (sexual desire, desire for love, desire for recognition and achievement) that we have as forces of alienation as well.

>>10982442
I don’t really think people feel that bad for selling a pie.

Meanwhile some even argue that if it was not a disease brought by Sapiens that destroyed Neanderthals it was our system of trade that kicked them out of the gene pool.

>>10982452
Welfare state, public goods, regulations.

>>10982192
/lit/ is one of the few boards with a sizable liberal userbase, so this isn't much of a sin.

>>10982371
Not the guy you had the original discussion with, but just wanted to share my thoughts. Communism isn't so much dysfunctional, my problem with it is that other systems work more efficiently in almost every situation. Sadly, don't have time to go into depth about this, so hope some anon is going to take the discussion from here.

>>10982219
GR is a stunner tho. And if you can't read him for the humor, gtfo honestly.

>>10982351
lolwut
How do you buy shares in a privately held company?
Also you're conflating product w/ commodity.

>>10982467
From a viewpoint of a further-right US business community, generic centre-right policies are "socialist". From a viewpoint of any reasonable human being, there's no socialism in the modern world economy.

>>10982535
We can play this game in reverse and I’ll show you how everything in the current system “is not real Capitalism”. Please, refrain from your ideological drivel and recognize that the current system is a hybrid.

>>10982562
>We can play this game in reverse and I’ll show you how everything in the current system “is not real Capitalism”.
Ok, go on.

>>10982432
Moron. I hate that I see the world as being broken. I'm certainly not smug about it.

>>10982567
The existence of coercitive taxes undermines the very idea of private property.

You should alternate your readings between right and left wing writers. Try Mises.

>>10982567
>>10982607
Or even better just open Economics 101.

>>10982510
honestly reading for humor is incredibly pleb, and since i’m not a big douglas adams fan I think i will pass.

>>10982611
Economics does not refute marx and no intelligent lefty (which admittedly is very uncommon on the internet) dismisses economics _when it makes positive statements_.

>>10982614
That's not his point, his point is that you can't appreciate the book for it's literary value and find it hard to get through, you are really disregarding the clever humor which enhances the charm of the book.

>>10982631
I didn’t say it refuted Marx (although it does), I was just saying that in my first year at the uni I learned in Economics 101 what are the capitalist features of our system and what are the socialist ones. I even remember a picture in which different countries were placed on a spectrum ranging from pure Capitalism to pure Socialism, even though there was nobody on either extremes. I am not from the US by the way.

>>10982607
>The existence of coercitive taxes undermines the very idea of private property.
The existence of private property undermines the very reciprocality of rights.
Besides, I can rebuke the existence of pure capitalism better then you. Since its inception, capitalism needed state intervention and support to operate in any meaningful way - without it, the biggest enterprises would collapse, destroy themselves and a society they exist in, not because they're so unspeakably "evil", but because of specific modus operandi of their structure. We were talking about state capitalism all along, but I assumed that all educated people imply it when they mention "simply" capitalism. Unfortunately the welfare state of state capitalism is crumbling as long as all old policies (The New Deal in the US, social democracy elsewhere) are being rooted out by the business guys, again, not because the guys are the Devil incarnate, but because of the logic of this system's inertia, and unlike in the 1930's, there is NO coherent worldwide socialist movement that can stop it, affect it or at least slow it down.
Another fun fact, the US economy of the last century was largely a planned economy, it didn't make it socialist in any way, socialism would result in either a state socialist ideal, with its preference for large nationalized, not private, enterprises, or some industrial democratic self-administration, where the structure of enterprises itself is transformed.

>>10982202
Whenever I buy a used book I read the publishing date first.

>>10982152
I can't sit and read for more than 30 minutes at a time

I unironically love jack kerouac

bukowski got me back into reading
i liked world war z
murakami is shit, but somehow he manages to make me feel nostalgic
min kamp book 3 is the best in the series
it took me far too long to understand that kafka was actually funny

I have a very, very basic taste.

>>10982254
congratulations

>>10982807
that's normal if you're a teen girl.

>>10982351
yeah you’re not even human

alienation happens when you’re used as an input

you cannot own a company if you are a prole, no one fucking owns Vanguard which owns almost all comps which is “owned” by private wealth funds which are “owned” by boutique investment funds which are funded by shell corps which are owned by people’s shadow bankers which are controlled by elites you fucking ape

LTV is accurate because regardless of the contextual value of other goods, there is still an intrinsic value in the worker’s efforts, a person has to exist who does the labor and their time+energy+skill is required to create the product thus they deserve the most compensation as they by far do the most work in crafting the product or input it does not matter what the market says was created, what was physically created and the hours/effort put in is what matters. you can just ignore prices, and relative wealth creation because it means nothing, none of that exists without buildings, machinery, technicians, engineers, laborers and boots on the ground, the rest is just parasitizing off of it

The economy never collapsed, the USSR suffered from a lack or morale and a deeply corrupt noxious hierarchy along with constant assault from without and within

paying someone MARKET prices which are DESIGNED by firms and the lawmakers THEY own ahead of time instead of for what they actually fucking produce and do, is a way of robbing people of their rightful bounty

its like paying someone one piece of an expected booty from a pirating venture but seizing ten billion pieces and keeping 900 million for yourself for “finding” the treasure, which is retarded. you deserve almost as much or as much compensation as the people who did the work to get the fucking wealth

your intellectual labor is not of itself in the context of acquiring real tangible wealth, more valuable than the hands and feet necessary to get there, its a trick, which people have long been beguiled by from military campaigns, that commanders are actually doing the lion’s share of the work, when in fact frontline fighters and scouts do almost all the work and necessarily have to think for themselves and do their own part, and sometimes the frontline commander is fighting with them, and sometimes he is the best fighter, and sometimes he does deserve slightly more than others

the difference is that a paper pushing faggot who is good at talking and is handsome makes $1M a year as a COO or CEO or board member while the man on the ground makes 100k a year and does not own company stock, does not have incredible benefits, does not get to fly around on company dollar, does not get to do coke with impunity, and is not also on the board of 3 other companies and is not being fed insider tips on investments and does not have untaxed death income in foreign bank accounts and is not invited to the CFR to advise politicans on trade or the Bilderberg group where prices are set

>>10982653
I bet it also defined socialism as government control of capital or some shit. How about you actually read Marx instead of letting some shitcake that probably couldn’t spell Marx’s first name with a gun to his head what is and isn’t socialist

>>10982960
This sounds like something I’d say if I’d never read Marx but thought I understood him because someone online explained it to me

I keep throwing away my writing
It just never pleases me, in the moment I feel like Shakespeare or Joyce but when I look at it the next day it makes me recoil in disgust from how poorly I feel it is or edgy it might be

I've read more wikipedia than anything else.

>>10982371
And it can't be tried because there is no such thing as "ownership". Nothing belongs to anyone, things sustain themselves by taking other things, the idea of it being a basic epistemological "right" of some specific person to take some specific thing rather than anyone else is a boogey spook

It took me 10 years to finish the Edge Chronicles.

>>10983208
This. Philosophy bores me to death but I'm still interested in the ideas so wikipedia is my home.

Im functionally illiterate

>>10982960
>LTV is accurate

>>10982960
imagine being so retarded as to actually thinking that this is remotely true

>>10982917
>be one of the great American writers
>spearhead an entire literary movement that would influence a generation
>be written off by virgins with a superiority complex on /lit/ for drowning in youthful pussy

Ogden Nash is my all-time favorite poet.

>>10983142
Am I the only one that ends up liking his writing more the next day? I'm the most critical when I'm writing.

>>10982152
I haven't read any of Hardy's novels whereas I have read most of his poetry. I fell in love with him as a poet and I'm afraid his prose will disappoint me. Tess of Urbervilles it's gathering dust in my shelf for that reason.

>>10983369
I has happened to me, but only one time. I was writing a short storie and the days I worked on it I was constantly demeaning it, feeling as it was some of the worst writing I've ever observed. After finishing it a feeling of bliss came upon me: I've realized it was the best thing I've ever wrote. Nonetheless, I am now weary as it is more than likely I'll never write something as good.

I love purple prose writing.They tell you to write in your normal voice. My normal voice is dull shit, at it's best sarcastic dull shit. I hope good prose can elevate any level of dullness.

>>10983391
His novels are nowhere near his poetry in terms of quality, I'm afraid. Post your favourite Hardy poem, though.

I unironically enjoy Warhammer 40k books.

>>10983414
I love purple prose, but only when it's definite, specific, and concrete. People who try to compensate for boring scenes with florid prose swimming in metaphorical and metaphysical bullshit will always annoy me.

>>10982476
People who read more, tend to be smarter. People who are smarter, tend to be more liberal.

>>10983446
Ciaphas Cain is alright but the HH is a rollercoaster qualitywise

>>10982392
Jesus Christ use some lotion

>>10983481
Here's my theory instead.
People who read more tend to be more introverted. Introverted people tend to have low testosterone. People with low testosterone tend to be more liberal.

>>10982152
I tell lies in my diary desu

>>10983457
>>10983457
Yeah man. I'm not as bad with it as a lot of the stuff I'll see posted on crit threads. I think it was a mistake to read The Sound and the Fury though. FInished it today and its dragged me back to purple prosing, overwrought, envious and emulative writing. I don't know, it seemed to negatively effect my writing more that Joyce's stuff for some reason. I can feel its effect on how I'm thinking about writing. I felt very free after reading naked lunch and Ginsberg's poetry. My writing instructor recommended me to read them. Got me doing creative free associative descriptions, good free writing. Now I feel like i'm wracking my brain to come up with sentences as good as Faulkner's stuff. Shit's depressing. The book was depressing too, and I know I'm going to have to read it again, because you can't get all of it first time around really. It paints a picture but I struggle to see a conclusion besides the complete picture painted.

>>10983513
Accurate. Drawing a correlation between reading and intelligence is really more like drawing a correlation between reading and being a pseud.

t. guy who started reading in high school because he thought it would make him seem smarter and more cultured.

>>10982152
i read things to feel something, i never do

My ultimate purpose passing many hard-times reading philosophy and poetry is to make the more addictive and insightful pieces of vore-porn ever created.

I have a very basic understanding of most classical philosophers but talk as if I've read their entire works and understand them very deeply.

>>10982195
anon could you please rec me some good purple prose? I think I like it but I'm not sure.

>>10982960
>first words of TLDR is "you're not even human" for someone having a different opinion than you
>expecting anyone to waste time reading the rest

>>10982152
I enjoy reading Norwegian wood.

>>10983823
Under the Volcano

I haven't finished a book in months

Murakami is one of my favorite authors.

>>10982152
I can't read, I just type long winded comments on /lit/ man-in-a-Chinese-room style while quoting random people

I'm a fucking retard

I believe that John Green is a good Author.

>>10984093
No you dont

Poetry is the worthless medium of those more concerned with sounding smart than actually being smart. Well-written prose is more melodic than actual poetry.
i still like both cantos and divina, but even i can admit its mostly superficial pretentiousness at best.

I've spent my entire life trying to evade the fact that I'm a pseud.

>>10982206
You shouldn't read the prefaces of old books anyways, you'll get the whole story spoiled like what the fuck who thought that was a good idea

>>10984155
I agree with this. Being concise and articulate is more important than eloquency

>>10984167
Accept it and embrace it

>>10983999
Same

>>10982306
>The inaccuracy of the LTV does not break marxism.

>>10982351
Mind if I save that pic?

>>10983208
That isn't weird. There is more of wikipedia than anything else. As long as you actually do your own research before taking a strong stand on a topic, what is the issue?

>>10982152
I spoiled 1984 and Animal Farm for myself when I was younger. Doesn't mean reading them was not enjoyable, but I'm sure it would have been better to be ignorant of the ending and general storyline. Doing my best never to repeat that mistake again.

Also: I haven't read as much as I would like to. At least I am underage still. Having a decent sized library of books I have read is a pretty achievable goal of mine.

im 30 and ive read 2 books in my entire life

>>10984373
>At least I am underage still
b&

>>10982152
I often have to re-read sentence to help me understand them

>>10982152
It's been nearly 5 years since I read a book cover to cover. Recently started reading again if its worth anything

>>10983236
What a coincidence I’ve been edging for 10 minutes

I think literature should be enjoyable rather than articulate, in the sense that using big words for the sake of using big words doesn't make your book more mature or deep. It's how you feel writing it that matters. If you don't enjoy reading or writing your story(ies), the same will apply to your readers.

I think Robert Jordan told a better story than Tolkien

>>10984167
Just surround yourself with normies, they'll think you're smart even though you are a retard
That's what I do anyway. I got told by someone that I'm really smart because I noticed all this symbolism in Call Me by Your Name. But I didn't notice it, I just read what someone else said and used it as my own

>>10985343
I can't stress this enough, normies are easily impressed. I've gotten complements for real Dr Moreau in public.

>>10985317
This, but I feel like the perfect book has a combination of both.

I'm a huge Orson Welles

>>10985387
Makes sense, Orson Welles was huge.

>>10985387
Absolute Unit. Is there any other way?

>>10982527
Although the tipical stock you buy is from the public stock market, you can buy stocks from private companys. Just talk to the owners and invest. That's how start ups get funding you know

>>10983446
Rec me some plox

>>10982653
>I learned in Economics 101 what are the capitalist features of our system and what are the socialist ones.
>capitalist ones: all of them
>socialist ones: none of them
socialism is the movement to negate capitalism. read marx.

>>10982195
Purple prose is the best teacher for reading comprehension.

>>10982292
>LTV is Marxist
It comes from Smith and Ricardo lol

>>10983513
This makes sense.

>>10985387
He was a big guy

I've been reading less than 10 pages a day for the past few weeks.

>>10986555
Better than not reading at all. Are you busy or finding it hard to focus?

I took nearly a month to read the first half of Republic, then read the last half in a day last week. There're just highs and lows, I think.

>>10982152
Audiobooks

>>10982152
I think that literature is basically false and wish to know the world

>>10982196
I get more joy out of reading something enjoyable or deep or interesting than I do working so I don't see your point

>>10982277
Friendly reminder that Marx survived only by mooching off of Engels business enterprises. He embodied the socialist leech while preaching as if he were the socialist hero.

>>10982527
You buy them privately.

>>10986555
Yeah this is sorta happening to me. I'm struggling to read more than a chapter of Crime and Punishment a day even though I'm enjoying it

>>10986599
Checked and seconded. Art is smoke and mirrors, but that's fine.

>>10982607
This. Always check both sides. Don't trash a religion if you don't know it. Don't trash a political ideology if you don't know it.

>>10982152
I started but stopped vineland, ulysses, moby dick and the tunnel at least 100 pages in.

>>10982196
Sauce me on the movie brother.

>>10982241
your actual sin is thinking One Hundred Years of Solitude is good enough for you to feel guilty about cheating to slog through it

>>10988766
what's this pic

>>10982152
I glance through the parts where Herodotus describes geography and relative position of locations. It's so tedious and i have no clue what the fuck is he talking about, because the points of references usually don't ring a bell to me. Same goes for various african, scythian and thracian tribes. Only paid attention to the asian ones, yet still can't tell who is who, except for arabs, persians and midians.

I'm 22 and just started reading last November.

Also I'm a very slow reader so it takes me ages to read a book, and on top of all that I'm easily distracted and even the slightest noise bothers me while reading, which is why I often do it in my car.

>>10987215
Friendly reminder about informal logical fallacies and ad hominem

>>10990131
It's from a documentary on a Orthodox Monastery but I don't remembet which one.

>>10983481
I'm reasonably certain that 'liberal' in the post you're replying to was not meant to refer to the liberal/conservative 'divide'/spectrum, but to general forms of government (i.e. communism/socialism/liberalism/fascism/etc).

Please take your tired bromides back to r/eddit.

>>10982152
I don't actually read books, I just read Wikipedia pages and shitpost on here

>>10987215
Friendly reminder that critiques of socialist thinkiners for living in a capitalist state are redundant
To abreviate "You say you're a socialist but you use an iPhone, interesting...I am very very smart"

>>10982152
I don't like Joyce

>>10982196
>>10990131
>>10991346

I believe its a documentary on a Russian Orthodox Monastery that focuses specifically on the Jesus Prayer.

Lookup "Jesus Prayer Monastery Documentary." It's probably that one.

>>10993027
What

>>10993027
Me neither. He should have stuck to stories.

>>10982263
Someone post it

>>10993027
Pleb. Gay. Faggot. Possibly homosexual as well.

>>10982152
I actually found Paper Towns to be quite an enjoyable read and I have read it 3 times now.

I read roughly a book every week but I could easily read much more if I ditched one horrible habit:

I read 15-30 pages and then take a break to browse the internet on my phone.

>>10982152
I read the first 300 or so pages of War and Peace and hated it.

I like graphic novels and manga.

I've fallen into the habit of using my onahole to edge, sometimes for hours, whenever I read anything on my kindle.

>>10995555
This post certainly deserved those quads. I mean that.

I once got quads and nobody even checked them. Never again!

>>10994264
Similar. I'm reading through Crime and Punishment right now and enjoying it, but I have to force myself to read more than one chapter at a time

>>10982208
I did and then I grew up

As an early teen, I read Atlas Shrugged and liked it.
I was so naive.

>>10995568
I was afraid no one would check em' TY very much anon

>>10982152
I started reading John Norman Gor books and enjoying it.

>>10995555
checked,
and, keked.

>>10983446
The setting is unironically one of the most interesting scifi settings there is.

>>10982152
I expect a novels prose to be as good as moby dicks so all I do is open the first page and glance over it, if it isn't immediately multifaceted, uses lots of words like countenance and sounds heavenly when subvocalised I'll just put the book down.
I don't even let the story build on me I just put the novel down, feels bad man

>>10983446
I fucking loved fulgrim

I read classics and then move on to the next name that has been dropped the most, I don't try to think about what message they get across, I just enjoy the pretty pictures in my head.