/lit/ - Literature

>Reading a Day in the life of Ivan Denisovich
>"Jesus, this book is dry and boring as fuck"
>Pick up a World War II encyclopedia instead

>read the landmarks of Ancient Greek Philosophy
>>Republic, On the Soul.... The list could go on
>stay quiet when the hipster group at uni is talking about Nietzsche et all
>go home & cry
>>read summaries of all the trendy philosophers on wikipedia
>now constantly carry conversations about Foucault, Nietzsche, Sartre & all the cool dudes in front of them
>one of my personas is loved for the first time in my life
>(v^__^v)

>Stephen King

>>1105575

2deep4u

>>1105613
Nietzsche isn't deep.

counter-sage

>dry and boring
You are devoid of emotions and must be a robot reading the book by means of recaptcha

>>1105608
thatsthejoke.jpg

>>1105616
Yeah he is

>>1105580
>dry and boring
You are devoid of emotions and must be a robot reading the book by means of recaptcha

>>1105621
He used irony so that people couldn't attack his weak arguments so easily,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_Friedrich_Nietzsche

>>1105592
>DAT .gif

Has anyone ever seen TyBrax and Stagolee post within the same minute?

>My face when my favorite Author is Neil Gaiman

>My face when my favorite Author is Franz Kafka

In 90% of cases:

>finished reading a classic, consecrated novel
>I don't see what all the fuss is about
> mfw 2deep4me

>Start reading Bleak House.
>Get 100 pages in and think, "This is boring, and far too long."
>Read The Stand instead. Enjoy it.

>>1105575
why wouldn't I want to read the ramblings of a crazy mustached man?

>read Catch-22
>"fuck this is so fucking bad"
>read John Dies At The End again instead

>Read American Psycho
>finished 2/3 of it
>GODDAMMIT I DONT GIVE A FLYING FUCK WHAT THIS PARTICULAR MOTHERFUCKER IS WEARING RIGHT NOW I'M BORED TO DEATH BY YOUR SHIT ELLIS FUCK YOUR DEEP AND IRONIC CRAPFUCK I'M DONE WITH YOUR SHIT BURN IN HELL
>play MW2

>Reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra
>realize this is just pretentious, hypocritical, contradiction riddle ramblings by an egotistical twat
>Iamnotsurprised.jpg

>get halfway through Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
>realize its boring cow shit
>read a Palahniuk book instead

mfw I couldn't green text

>>1105693

>read American Psycho
>pretty much this up until "I'm Bored"
>keep reading, skipping the clothing descriptions
>kinda just stop at the last ten pages and never really finish it

>>1105693
>MW2
>Implying any book wouldn't be too deep for you

>try to read Sound and Fury
>get to page 25 then give up
>shit is fucking hard to read
>read palahniuk book

>>1105693
>Bret Easton Ellis
>American Psycho
>MW2
God is your life really that boring or are you doing some kind of fast?

>read V.
>this prose
>THIS FUCKING PROSE
>love the shit until it gets to the part in Alexandria
>quit and pick up where I left of in Atlas Shrugged
>shitstormabrewin.jpg

>Say X book is a personal favorite
>Have really only read the first 40 pages

>attempt to read The Trial
>get quarter way through
>so fucking boring
>look up ending on wikipedia
>glad that i didn't waste my time.

>>1105706

Probably, hell I even finished Atlas Shrugged.

>read The Rats In The Walls
>don't finish it
>look up ending on Wikipedia months later
>wish i would have finished it

>>1105715
Good grief, when will atheists learn...

>>1105714
>The Trial
>boring
What the hell?

>Start reading Brave New World
>"This is fucking terrible."
>Go read Looking For Alaska instead

> go to book store with a girl from college
>we browse the shelves, I talk about hardcore lit I've read when I see the titles (Faulkner, Joyce, Tolstoy etc.)
> I've only read the wikipedia summaries for most
> sometimes I just know the title and go all: "oh I recomend this, quite stimulating"
>girl thinks I'm the smartest person she knows
> mfw girl and me hook up because i am such a badass intellectual

>Start reading Catch-22
>Get bored, google the rest of it
>Tell everyone I read it

You can replace 'Catch-22' with almost any literary work (Macbeth, Dorian Grey, etc)

>>1105726

What no one tells you is that this is how everyone does it.

>read Lolita
>fap furiously multiple times throughout the book, feel terrible every time.

>read a classic
>tell everyone how great it is
>realise it sucks
>stop reading

>mfw I realize there are no discussions on /lit/ because it's full of ignorant faggots who read Wikipedia summaries of must-read classical works.

yeah I'm gonna be doing a lot of wikipedia-ing for my eng degree so I can kick back with harry potter

>>the only two classics I've read are The Brothers K and The Idiot
>>I boast to have read vast amounts of russian lit because it goes well with my hipster image
>>I am genuinely ashamed

Basically /lit/ is full of posers. Yeah, that makes sense.

>>1105774
You should probably just end your life, hipster scum.
>>1105753
You too.

So much honesty on /lit/... what's happening?

>I shit on Russian lit, not because I don't like it (I've only read C & P and enjoyed it) but because I have a Russian neighbor (Brooklyn) who is a tremendous dickhead.

>mfw when I'm reading Gravity's Rainbow and enjoying it, get to a point where I have ten pages left to go and stop reading because I don't want to be one of the hipster twats who has read it and "loved it"

>start reading Infinite Jest
>it's good but I can't stay focused on any task for longer than 35 minutes
>oh shit my cell phone has tetris

>begin reading sophisticated/midly sophisticated literature
>fuck this I'll rather read some Dan Abbnett WH40K shit
>I'm okay with being uncultured gutter trash

>>1105797
I do this with anything that my tremendous asshole of an office-mate recommends. I'm more likely to read/enjoy something if he never talks about it.
Oh how I hate him.

Here's an old one.

>Reading Great Expectations
>When does shit start happening?
>My god this is boring
>Take naps to fill my free period instead

and a slightly more recent one
>Start reading catch-22
>can't keep track of all the characters with crazy names
>fuck this shit

and a really old one, from when I was like 12

>read LOTR
>mfw songs, songs everywhere
>seriously, what the fuck is up with these songs?
>not a fan of the prose either
>plow through it with mild interest
>don't bother finishing after gollum falls into the volcano

>Hipsters pretending to read books

Why am I not surprised? The more and more time I spend with these people, the more I realize how fake they all are. With every conversation I can feel my soul being slowly drained away...

>Reading For Whom the Bell Tolls
>El Sordo? More like, El Boredo, Ingles.
>Start with yet another Pratchett novel

>reading terry goodkind
>very quickly realize it's filled with rand shit
>continue reading entire series
>i don't give a fuck

This thread is the reason I'm always so depressed. I actually read books and want to discuss them in public. The only people I can find to do this want to turn it into a review, IE this book sucks because of this, it tries too hard to be this...etc.

I've always had the sneaking suspicion that no one really reads the books they claim to. Now I know that to be true. You're pitiful /lit/. Absolutely pitiful.

Yeah, I sad.

captcha: sticidge 1975 ):

>start reading Wuthering Heights
>look up 16 or so words in the first 10 pages
>feel inferior about my lacking English skills, thought I was good for a non-native speaker

>>1105866
>Reading The Letters of Gustave Flaubert, Steegmuller translation
>Need dictionairy up to two times a page in the beginning
>Make a post to cheer up forgeigner
>Feel shame at own skills

>>1105866

Older books are weird like that. The language has changed a lot.

That you appear to be able to communicate effectively speaks well of your abilities.

>reading Pynchon
>weird sex
>masturbate
>eight times
>have discovered new kinks
>ruined for normal porn

>>Dislike Machiavelli
>>Begin reading The Prince, can't put it down
>>Agree with almost all of it

God you people fucking suck

> Try to read Anna Karenina
> Want to enjoy it
> Can't get into it
> Give up and read Altered Carbon
> I'm an English teacher

I'm sorry, /lit/

>>1105898
>I'm an english teacher
>reading a russian book

There's your problem.

>>1105575


>go to class
>listen to teacher ramble about shakespeare
>realize i could get better analysis from the library
>realize my library card provides a free humanities education

>not a big literature person
>Start reading pride and prejudice and zombies on a recommendation from a friend
>find out the added stuff is trite and the original content is ten times more interesting
>start browsing /lit/

>>1105892
Similar to this:
>Hurr Fukuyama is a neo-con and thus shit
>Still decide to read The end of history and the last man
>I agree with everything.

>>1105898
I don't know why but i feel kind of weird knowing that teachers lurk on 4chan.

>havent actually read all that much
>dont ever claim to have
>just getting into literature for the first time, really
>quite enjoying it
>none of this is bad

>>1105913
Our maths and physics teacher in junior high was obviously part of the anonymous, he even used a couple of motivational posters in his slideshows once or twice. Funny thing is, he was the best teacher in the entire school.

You now realise there are people who had an anonymous teaching them in junior high are now old enough to browse 4chan themselves.

>>my parents are huge bibliophiles, our collection has hundreds of volumes, some inherited from my grandparents
>> classic lit from every major country, complete russian and french collection
>>dozens of books on philosophy, theater and theology
>>never touched any of those
>>I have a private collection as well, in my room
>>mostly Stephen King (I'm a huge fan), generic adult lit and Sci-Fi

How would I request this thread to be archived?

What's the point of reading philosophy when most philosophers don't even understand the #1 rule of the world: WE MADE THE RULES.

If everyone just dropped whatever shit they have planned humankind could regroup and change society however we want. Unfortunately philosophers never give any plans on how to do this; they're like the polar opposite of an old man who always says "back in the day, I used to...etc" They ramble about the future just like the old man who rambles about the past, and neither one is real. Only now is real. There is no future or past.

Fuck I hate 99% of philosophers.

>>1105955
Yeah, well, you're pretty much in line with most contemporary philosophy. Should try reading a bit more.

show boobs and pussy

>>1105944
I feel so sorry for your poor parents.

>>1105955
which philosophers are you talking about?

>>1105975

Me too >.< But I was always a simpleton. I'd much rather spend my time dicking around with my retarded friends. Reading to me is what you do on those slow Thursday evenings. So naturally I want something to enjoy and pass the time quick. I tried reading a novel by Sartre (The Words is the translation my my language) and it just kinda went over my head

>>1105865

I read the books I claim to. But I have a bad memory so all I can remember is the basic gist of how I felt about it. Details tend to be nebulous at best.

>>1105955
>>1105955
In my opinion I think all philosophy is bullshit.

Omg I'm so deep cause I live by what some ass-hat wrote down 500 years ago without realizing he's just another fucking human, just like you.

>>1105990
You should try something more entry-level, similar to the genre you best like now, or perhaps something you can relate to.
Not every piece of classical literature makes you think or requires too much effort, you know.

Concentrate less on the philosopher and more on the content.

>brave new world
>WOWOHMYGOODNESSWOWTHISISSOFUCKINGINCREDIBLYBADICOULDKILLMYSELF.JPG

>>1106004
>Omg I'm so deep cause I live by what some ass-hat wrote down 500 years ago without realizing he's just another fucking human, just like you

>>1105990
I find Ancient Greek Philosophy to be pretty simple. Then again from this thread I shouldn't be wasting my time with it since I could possibly get girls or friends using wikipedia summaries...

>>1106004
>implying these guys aren't a million times smarter than you, and that maybe, I know, you already know everything from your quarter century on earth, if I'm being generous, they just might have something you could learn from.

>>1106010
>>1106010
He's another fucking human for fucks sake! I cannot take philosophy seriously if it revolves around humanity. What did any philosopher do to elevate himself above human that he can write down what he considers FACT while forgetting it also applies to him (Which I have rarely seen, if ever, any philosopher do.).

Philosophy grad student here, greatly amused at the recent posts.

>>1106024
>Philosophy grad student here, greatly amused at the recent posts
But severely depressed at your career prospects...

Do you have to do any essay writing in Philosophy? If so I'm not taking it as a minor...

>>1106024

do they tell you if god exists when you finish your masters?

>>1106030

I'm going to be a prof. Well, either that or flip burgers.

If you do a philosophy minor you will almost certainly write essays. The only courses guaranteed not to involve essays are logic courses. Occasionally, large and lower level courses will have short answer tests just to make grading easier. But essays are the norm.

>>1106024
You're a better man than I. If this discussion was about my field (math (...I'm sort of a dabbler in /lit/)) I'd be ragin' like a Cajun.

>people hate philosophy "made by other humans in the same position as I"
>can't admit that they may be smarter
>can't admit that logic can be valid or invalid regardless of the thinker
>can't admit that they may have been merely more lucky in developing great ideas
>can't admit that those people may come from different positions in life so they have different stimuli and different views
>I'm not even mad.

>>1106035

I don't have my masters yet, but everyone in their right minds knows that God exists.

P11, Spinoza's Ethics (I)

God, or a substance consisting of infinite attributes, each of which expresses eternal and infinite essence, necessarily exists.

Demonstration

If you deny this, conceive, if you can, that God does not exist. Therefore (by A7) his essence does not involve existence. But this (by P7) is absurd. Therefore God necessarily exists, qed.

>>1106022
I infer from your posts that you believe
1)philosophers are unworthy of consideration because their experience or perspective is not omniscient, or even necessarily greater than our own.
2)by extension, our own perspectives are non-omniscient and limited.
That is, you think philosophers are "just people", as are you. It seems to me that additional perspective would still be valuable in this case.
Consider:
You are tied to a chair on the rear side of the Lincoln memorial, which you have never seen. To you, it looks like a rather drab, if large, stone building. Someone comes around the side of the memorial, and tells you that on the other side, there is not a simple entrance, but a giant open space, containing of all things a giant stone statue of a man in a top hat.
This would, obviously, seem implausible to you, but the new person's perspective is still valuable to you, not just in the conventional sense that he is correct. Quite independent of the fact that he is correct, he has provided you with a new perspective: an idea sufficiently different from your own as to improve your knowledge both of the potential state of the world (the monument, in this case) and of the other person. You may or may not believe him. I'm not sure I would, under the circumstances, but now, unlike before, you have an impetus to try and see the other side of the monument.

>>1106083
If you see the other side urself do u go crazy?

also i like the example

>Try to read Pale Fire
>Remember that I can't ever get into poetry
>Read Cat's Cradle instead, lurve it

>>1106083

d'aww. it's like you think you're actually going to convince people to properly engage with other peoples' ideas.

>>1105684
JDaTE is the shit, bro.

I own over 250 books I haven't read. I feel incredibly guity about them all and I have no idea if I'll ever get this down to a decent number. 50 or so wouldn't be too bad but this just feels decadent. And then I borrow library books which just feels fucked up in context.

>>1106090
Lol, ideally not.
A better way of restating the situation would be to say that, for some reason, the other person was unaware of the rear side of the monument, and was attempting to tell you that there was nothing to the building other than an open space with a statue. Neither would be a correct perspective, and by moving to the other side, you would create a new one, which is aware of both a back and a front side of it, but as yet incognizant of the sides, the view from inside, and so forth.

>>1106073
Circular.
Inductive reasoning actually goes - nothing infinite exists. Therefore existence is finite. Nothing is proven or disproven but a position is assumed.

Spinoza is full of shit, brah.

>>1106048
Please tell me the meaning behind that saying.

I'm from Lafayette and I don't even understand what the fuck it means.

>>1106109
>Circular.

How so?

>>1106114
>Didn't read the rest of the post
>Trollan

>>1106110
I'm just saying I'd be angry and not as bemused as you seem.

>read articles on Nietzsche
>listen to epic 24 lecture series on Nietzsche by Robert Solomon, feel i understand his philosophy well by now
>read Zarathustra
>actually understand what he is doing and the points he is making
>enjoy the book and feel inspired
>mfw when im intellectually superior

>>1106119
I think he means you didn't show why nothing infinite exists. If not I still want to know anyway.

>>1106130
Can I do this with library card + utubes?

>>1106125

Philosopher here- I'm actually not the one who asked that question ;). As for why I'm so bemused- eh, it's kids on the internet. And you need to stay bemused rather than angry in order to give constructive criticism while grading.

Guy who asked the question:
http://www.raginpagin.com/hotpage/showthread.php3?t=17267

>>1106114

>If you deny this, conceive, if you can, that God (a substance consisting of infinite attributes, each of which expresses eternal and infinite essence), does not exist. Therefore his essence does not involve existence. But this is absurd. Therefore God necessarily exists, qed.

It says "assume god (infinite substance) does not exist. This is absurd. Therefore God exists."
Please post the principles and assumptions you used from Spinoza's writings so we can all see how they don't back him up at all.

The circular bit is "Therefore his essence does not involve existence."
"His essence" assumes he exists. It is a contradiction to say "his essence does not involve existence" because it has already been assumed he exists in the sentence. It's not only circular, it's a strawman, which is obviously the intention.

>read a shitload of classics
>fuck I'm tired of all these long-winded, whiny worldviews thinly disguised by intermittently great prose
>everyone is a motherfucking christ-like figure
>stop reading completely for two years
>start reading science fiction
>why did I waste all that time on lit?

>>1106138
>Please post the principles and assumptions you used from Spinoza's writings

Okay. A7 and P7, was it? As are Axioms, by the way, Ds definitions, and Ps principles.

A7: If a thing can be conceived of as not existing, its essence does not involve existence.

P7: It pertains to the nature of a substance to exist.

Demonstration

A substance cannot be produced by anything else (By P6C); therefore it will be the cause of itself, that is (by D1), its essence necessarily involves existence, OR it pertains to its nature to exist, qed.

>>1106147
>whiny worldviews
>Dostoevsky

>>1106151
You're right, you're right. He's the only one who really stuck with me, though.

Korin?

>>1106130

>Listen to what some guy thinks this book means
>read book and think i understand it
>i am a gigantic tool

Way to go, bro.

>>1106153
You should read Pope Benedict XVI's essays on The Brothers Karamazov. The combination of both is really what resulted in me finally finding God in my life. I guarantee if you haven't done so that it will change your life

>>1106162
> me finally finding God

>>1106136
sure

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_Friedrich_Nietzsche
http://www.iep.utm.edu/nietzsch/
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche-moral-political/
http://www.tameri.com/csw/exist/nietzsche.shtml

torrent
http://www.kickasstorrents.com/will-to-power-the-philosophy-of-friedrich-nietzsche-t89697.html

>>1106167
>posts the dumb poster boy of philosophy
>the man is all style, no substance
>he couldn't understand Existentialism
>had most of his own works discredited by real philosophers
>you expect to insult me by posting him
>I can only laugh but pity your ignorance greatly

>>1106158
>completely dismiss the work of 2 top scholars as "some guy"
>has no idea what he's talking about
>trololo i troll u

>>1106174
>implying I read more than the first line of a theist's post

>>1106162
links?

>>1106176
No wonder you like Russell. If you have that much disdain towards theists then you're missing out on a great deal of philosophy. I don't think you care though unless something is in accordance with your world view.

It really is atheists that are the intolerant ones in the 21st century...

>>1106179
You have to visit the Vatican library, the texts haven't been digitized, I'm not sure if they're planning to do so :(

>>1106181

>It really is atheists that are the intolerant ones in the 21st century...

well sometimes it's ok to be intolerant towards ignorance, bigotry and violence

>>1105702
Hey! I live at the area that that beach is at! :D

>>1106162
Can those essays be found online?
All I found was some encyclical letter (Spes Salvi, 2007) which doesn't seem to deal too deeply with Brothers K.

>>1106196
see >>1106182 You have to visit the Vatican library, the texts haven't been digitized
(he knows no one's gonna go to the Vatican. He is lying)

>>1106196
see:
>>1106182

>>1106191
>ignorance, bigotry and violence
All of which the church opposes. Of course you wouldn't know since you've never read The Bible nor taken any interest in Christianity whatsoever.

>>1106150
>A7: If a thing can be conceived of as not existing, its essence does not involve existence.
In other words - if something does not exist, it does not exist. His use of "essence" is used to talk about things that potentially exist or exist in concept, at least in this case.


>P7: It pertains to the nature of a substance to exist.
Amusingly contradictory to A7 if by "essence" and "nature" he's talking in the same way.
If a substance exists, it exists, and if it doesn't it doesn't. Using slippery words for things that potentially exist is just a bitch move. So, again:


>If you deny this, conceive, if you can, that God does not exist. Therefore (by A7, meaning that things that don't exist don't exist) his essence does not involve existence. But this (by P7 things that exist exist, or in this context maybe "everything exists") is absurd. Therefore God necessarily exists, qed.

It looks even more circular and self-contradictory in that sense. When philosophers use obscure definitions, doubt their logic. When philosophers use obscure words, doubt their logic. When philosophers redefine common words to mean subtly different things, doubt their logic a whole damn lot. When they take the latter course and then use those definitions casually and frequently and pile them on top of one another in walls of self-referencing text with footnotes, etc., find another goddamn philosopher because he'll take so long to say so little it won't be worth it.

>>1106207
>didn't ask for P6C or D3

The illusions of circularity will disappear, I swear ;_;

jesus christ i cant follow this anymore.

>>1106207
what do you think of Nietzsche's ironical style?

>>1106207
>maybe "everything exists"

Hmmm.

I'm going to go ahead and keep on quoting even though you didn't ask me to, it's pleasant.

D1: By cause of itself I understand that whose essence involves existence, OR that whose nature cannot be conceived except as existing.

P6: One substance cannot be produced by another substance.

Demonstration

In nature there cannot be two substances of the same attribute (by P5), that is (by P2), which have something in common with each other. Therefore (by P3) one cannot be the cause of the other, or cannot be produced by the other, qed.

Corollary (this is the C)

From this it follows that a substance cannot be produced by anything else. For in nature there is nothing except substances and their affections, as is evident from A1, D3, and D5. But it cannot be produced by a substance (by P6). Therefore, substances absolutely cannot be produced by anything else, qed.

====

Some additional points.
>>1106207
>When philosophers use obscure definitions, doubt their logic. When philosophers use obscure words, doubt their logic. When philosophers redefine common words to mean subtly different things, doubt their logic a whole damn lot.

With contemporary philosophers? Yes. But if the philosopher is not contemporary, you ought to give him the benefit of the doubt, and realize that language which seems obscure to you was the common academic language of the time.

>read 'the bell curve'
>don't even bother pretending to be offended.

>>1106202
Holy fuck you are stupid. Tell that to anyone who experienced the worst of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. You'll get your head kicked in.

>>1106217
Why do you even bother participating or arguing against someone with clear knowledge of the subject if all you have is Wikipedia?
You clearly don't belong to this thread. Do you actually believe your point holds any value here?

The only thing I've read that over a 1000 pages is Harry Potter. Also Foucault gave me aids and I dont wear condoms.

>>1106664
I'm not arguing. I was just asking what he thought of it since he was criticizing philosophers that use obscure language. I was kidding about the wiki thing btw.

>>1106657
Those hooligans aren't true Christians.

>reading The Sound and The Fury
>make it through Benjy's retardation
>"Alright things can only get easier from here"
>read next two paragraphs
>put book down
>leave room

>>1106671
>>1106217

I am
>>1106207
and
>>1106138

Since I keep posting, I'll start being a namefag.
Also, I don't have a "clear knowledge" of the subject, beyond that I know that Spinoza built this elaborate series of axioms and definitions and such to support his idea of the cosmos. All I have is logic.
Anyway. Let's let this be the last one for a while, because I have some work to do.>>1106231

>D1: By cause of itself I understand that whose essence involves existence, OR that whose nature cannot be conceived except as existing.
>P6: One substance cannot be produced by another substance.
I'm sorry. I don't what the hell is going on here. The first definition is throwing me with "whose" and I don't know what he's trying to say.
The principle is very sketchy. Yes, matter and energy can only be transformed and never created nor destroyed, but they didn't know that at that time. Is he saying that there can be no magical, spontaneous creation of matter, substance? That's my best guess.
What about a person who shapes a piece of wood? Is that "creating" a tool out of something? How anal retentive are we going to be with our definitions?

The worst part of this is that each definition relies on a principle and an axiom, each principle on another definition and axiom, and each axiom on another definition and principle. I looked at the writings of Spinoza in question, actually, in a Great Ideas book (I think). The preliminary writings went on for so long I just stopped. I couldn't take it.
Seriously, this is just painful. I'm cool with philosophy, but when you talk about your ideas you actually have to COMMUNICATE them.

>post about reading books via the Kindle app on my Droid
>openly admit to reading Stephen King, Dean Koontz, etc.
>laugh at the rage / "kill yourself" comments
>feelsgoodman.jpg