/lit/ - Literature

>>12889841
You mean Joaquin Phoenix

>>12889841
first, Whatever
More of the same, but better: Atomized
Asian Street Meat: Platform
Islam taking over: Submission
Contemporary art: The Map and the Territory (I'd skip it)
Haven't read: Possibility of an Island (some people say it's his best)

>>12889841
You don't, he's a zionist bootlicker

>>12889841
is there anything more pretentious than smoking cigarettes?

>>12889882
What do they pretend?

>>12889885
smoking doesn't make you cool no matter how hard you try, teen

>>12889890
Does Houellebecq pretend to be cool? Is he a teen?

>>12889895
>Does Houellebecq pretend to be cool
undeniably
>Is he a teen
mentally

>>12889900
>mentally a teen
Is this why he topic inceldom in his novels?

>>12889841
Atomized/Elementary Particles strikes right at the heart of Houellebecq's societal critique. All the other books are basically subbranches which delve into a specific area of society.

>>12889871
>Contemporary art: The Map and the Territory (I'd skip it)
It has little to do with contemporary art, and skipping it is a huge mistake. Incredibly solid novel on all fronts, regardless of whether it's houellebecqian enough to most people or not.

>>12889882
Not pretentious, just a disgusting addiction for weak people.

>>12889948
*It's just a brain enhancer for anyone who uses it*
FTFY

>>12889948
It's as addictive as drinking coffee and the withdrawal is shorter than caffeine withdrawal. You never smoke and you think its disgusting only because you see disgusting low class people smoking and conflate the act with them.

>>12889948
>npc.exe

>>12889947
>all fronts
I'd say it's just bad and failed on all fronts, but am unironically curious - what did you like?

>>12889841
Just finished Soumission. What strikes me the most brilliant move is that its quite plausible with every step. The main cause for all of the plot is the gap which is left in the political landscape once the french are done with alternating center-left and center-left presidents. suddenly it's not left or right, but Front National or Muslim Brotherhood. And here comes the next trick: They both seem similar to the protagonist. And not a bad word is said by him about either of them.

>>12889948
>using ***weak people***

cringe

>>12889871
possibility of an island is great

i'd just read him chronologically. his new novel, serotinine, is also great.

>>12889882
Being French

What's the one where he is in a creative writing class and writes the poem?
>Tick tock, the hairs on my cock

>>12890504
Atomised

>>12889871
does it really matter what the book is about. it's just some dude and braps

>>12889882
it's a european thing, and it's only pretentious if you hold your hands like the fag in op's pic

This isn't Hegelian philosophy. You don't have to start somewhere in particular. All of his books are accessible. You can read whatever sounds the most appealing. The least accessible one, I guess, is "Possibility of an Island", so maybe don't start there.

>>12890504
Praise him in song
(hair on my dong)

platform fucked my shit up desu

>>12889882
>>12889948
>2019
>Not smoking cigarettes

Are you bullied, mentally handicapped, or both?

>b-but it kills you

And? Was life a contest about who lives the longest?

>it's addicting!!!

It's not, as long as you aren't underage and you can smoke in moderation.

>it's....IT'S EXPENSIVE!!!

Who forces you to buy a pack everyday, you fucking peat-gavel.

>>12890027
It was very touching. Protag's conversations with his father were somewhat interesting (I knew less on the subject back then, but then again, we all have somewhat limited knowledge unless we major in that kind of thing). The bits about main cop's dog and wife were pretty funny, simply. And the very ending (last 10-20 pages) was beautiful.

>>12890110
You a frog? I heard the English translation isn’t out until September.

>>12891248
>Was life a contest about who lives the longest?
I'm not sure how to win this game, but I'm pretty sure you lost when they remove your jaw with a tumour just to replace it with one of your kneecaps.

>>12891308
lmao it has been translated in every tongue except engl*sh

>>12891339

>>12891419
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA

>>12889841
I heard hes the french murakami is there truth to this? I'm planning to try him out but if its as shitty as murakami ill drop him in 4 pages

>>12889841
Submission

What does it say about a girl if she enjoys Houellebecq, Roth, and Pessoa? Mild depression?

>ctrl + f
>houellebecq girl
>0 results
I'm disappointed

>>12893650
"She's" a tranny.

>>12893814
She's actually not I have seen her naked

>>12891637
ryu murakami not haruki

>>12889961
>he doesn't chew nicotine gum for the same effect without the limitations

>>12891339
Tobacco smoking does not cause cancer.

>>12893650
She had a boyfriend/dad/bit of both who liked them, or she’s an anomaly and should be treated with wonder and suspicion in equal measure.

>>12894245
tobacco has superior effects. what limitations?

>>12894264
no one will lets you smoke indoors anymore

>>12894269
This. It’s a civic sin.

>>12894269
>>12894275
Too bad. I do as I please.

>>12893650
>girl
>with any particular interests in general
>welbeck
>roth
She is a sexed up whore and will definitely cheat on you sooner than later

>>12894280
I seriously doubt that you walk into your office/classroom/whatever and smoke
if you do and get away with it more power to you
but you don't

>>12894306
I have never seen someone do this but I want to

>>12894408
What would they do? What COULD they do?

>>12894519
>um e-excuse me you can't smoke here
>*puff* buzz off toots
At this remark, the uncomfortable upholder of all decent unspoken law is visibly distraught, confused, and in a state of clear intimidation. He walks backwards instinctually, mouth agape and grasping for words, yet finding none. Spicule of tears in his eye and scrawny neck quivering, he attempts to compose himself, yet fails. Utterly defeated, he stammers "i-i-it's not allowed!" as forcefully as his dear heart can muster, and lost for action he walks off far too quickly. Our hero chuckles to himself, exhaling a liter of smoke in the process. Extinguishes his Marlboro on his square, gleaming front teeth. Exit.

>>12894546
Our protagonist has returned.

>>12894546
Imagine being this based.

>>12894546
10/10

Is he worth reading translated into English?

>>12895315
Just learn French.

>>12895315
Take the Francophone pill

>>12895317
>>12895321
done, but I'm shit still so what I was thinking about doing was reading in english then reading again in french so that I already know what's happening and maybe that'll help me learn via some subconscious association fuckery

What brand of cigarettes does Hollandaise smoke?

>>12894546
a hero of our time

>>12895317
>>12895321
alright, I'm about a fifth of the way into Whatever now and it feels like palahniuk in a bad way, i.e. wearing jean shorts in the early 2000s and thinking gore videos are edgy, I thought Hollabackgirl was higher IQ than this when I started

>>12895548
gamer fuel brand

>>12889841
page 1

>>12889882
>>12889948
What are some alternative, equally effective, equally affordable relaxants you have in mind? Serious question. I don't smoke and never have and I am a very anxious person.

>>12895816
Relaxants? Somebody correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t nicotine a get-up-and-go kind of a thing?

>>12895697
It is you who is lower IQ

>>12895834
I've always assumed when coworkers step outside for a smoke break before a big next task it's to relax nerves.

>>12895842
More of a comfort thing than a physiological relaxation. Hypes you up but also hits a satisfaction button.

>>12895842
>>12895834
Tobacco has BOTH anxiolytic and stimulant effects.
Pure nicotine on its own is anxiogenic.

>>12889841
Don't

>>12895927

>>12895936
Niggee

>>12895839
I am 30% in according to kindle, taking a break to eat. It's not as bad as my first impression but meh, it's still very much
>dude here is a soulless and ugly situation, what about these feels
>do you know these feels bro?!

I do know those feels but they're boring and this is pointless art, it's the novel form of a stillborn baby, there's no reason for this kind of thing to exist

>>12895976
His later novels are better, but Whatever is a relatively short read and its subject matter informs much of Houellebecq's later work. Just power through anon.

>>12896010
fair enough, it is decades old so maybe I will give his newer stuff a chance as long as this one doesn't get offensively bad

What does Houellebecq's office look like?

>>12896323
He doesn't have a office, he writes his books on a phone.

>>12896389
What do his carpal tunnels look like?

>>12889841
Does he name all the protagonists after himself?
Read two of his works and both protags are name Michel, a coincidence (doubt it) that's even funnier placed in a heartfelt conversation and his name was called out of intimacy or hot, steamy intercourses during which his name is mourned

>>12889890
Except it objectively does

>>12896393
Like tunnels of Vietcong

>>12889890
makes you more creative
makes you write better
funny how all the people wanting to ban it themselves are severely lacking in brains and coolness.

>>12891308
not a frog but luckily not angloid either

>>12896405
still looks like a fag, although McCartney always looks like a fag

How is his book on Lovecraft?

>>12894255
>>12889961
the fuck? what's with all the propaganda against smoking that's forced on us in public school then? have i just been lied to? would my writing improve if i smoked while sitting down to write?

>>12896925
>McCartney always looks like a fag
Do you realize how many countless beautiful young maidens he has deflowered? Calling him a fag is maximum cope

>>12896968
not nearly as bad as they thought it was.
Smoke non-filter, organic tobacco, roll your own.
Tobacco helps with writing.

>>12896975
I didn't call him a fag though. Fact is he looks and sounds like a choir boy, even to this day.
https://youtu.be/_HgJK9OY3ag

>>12896987
>Smoke non-filter, organic tobacco, roll your own.
Thanks. But don't tobacco companies add a bunch of chemicals into the tobacco? Is there such a thing as "chemical free" tobacco?

I started with The Possibility of an Island which hits the usual welbeck themes but splits the narrative between the formation of a Raelian cult and post-apocalyptic sci-fi which was unexpected as an entry point into this guy's work. Read Submission after that, better than expected.

>>12896968
read these.
>The Smoking Scare Debunked
http://wispofsmoke.net/PDFs/Whitby.pdf
>Smoking is Good For You
https://www.scribd.com/document/44685607/Smoking-is-Good-for-You-William-T-

>>12896992
commercial box cigarettes do, and contain many additives. buy roll-your-own tobacco, organic, and you avoid it completely.

nice thing about rolling your own is that you avoid the FSC in commercial packs of cigs.

>>12895548
either camel or gauloises

>Houellebecq thread deteriorates into substance use rationalization
Everything is right in the world

>>12895548
zhong nan hai 5

>>12896996

Hollow-Beck

I started with Atomised, everything else has just paled in comparison tbqh. One of the only books to make me cry

I still have to read The Map and The Territory, Lanzarote, and the new one.

>>12897099
Houellebecq predicted both Islamic terrorism and the yellow vests.

It's no coincidence that he's now going for allegiance with the Chinese. The man is a prophet, take heed.

>>12897253
>predicted Islamic terrorism
what the fuck are you talking about

>>12897285
He wrote Platform in 2001 which involved an Islamic terrorist attack, everyone called him a sensationalist hatemonger and he was charged for hate speech and then the towers fell.

>>12897310
2001 wasn't the first islamic terrorist attack. wasnt even the first plane hijacking

>>12897321
No shit, there has been Islamic terror as long as Islam exists. But Houellebecq is generally one step ahead of the zeitgeist.

>"It's been hopeless for a long time, from the very beginning. You will never represent, Raphaël, a young girl's erotic dream. You have to resign yourself to the inevitable; such things are not for you. It's already too late, in any case. The sexual failure you've known since your adolescence, Raphaël, the frustration that has followed you since the age of thirteen, will leave their indelible mark. Even supposing that you might have women in the future - which in all frankness I doubt - this will not be enough; nothing will ever be enough. You will always be an orphan to those adolescent loves you never knew. In you the wound is already deep; it will get deeper and deeper. An atrocious, unremitting bitterness will end up gripping your heart. For you there will be neither redemption nor deliverance. That's how it is."

what do you think of this passage

>>12897932
The blackpill summed up. What's the solution though, suicide?

>>12897938
book 2 solution: we all become perfect genderless clones with clitoris bodies
book 3 solution: sex tourism
book 4 solution: asexual clone hermits
book 5 solution: don't know yet
book 6 solution: islam
book 7 solution: kys

>>12897938
i think a lot of this sort of suffering at its core is more about resentment than unfulfilled desires; it's more "why do THEY get to have all that" than "I wish I had all that".
"sexual failure", as houellebecq describes it, exists in opposition to "sexual success", which is the real cause of the suffering.
what would *really* liberate most people isn't "$1,000 a week" or "state mandated gfs", but the removal of status anxiety rather than the fulfillment of their desires (though that would be better than what we have no doubt)

however it seems as if things are going in the opposite direction; ways of measuring success are being thinned out, increasingly focused on things that are almost entirely outside your control and increasingly concentrated to fewer people. alongside this trend, the means of broadcasting social success are increasing in effectiveness and reach through social media, further increasing resentment

i have no idea if/how this could be fixed but the body of people who it affects is growing every year (you just have to look at people living with their parents, wage levels, rates of people who aren't having sex etc) so it's possible that it could become a mainstream political issue in the future

>>12897995
What kind of incel are you? (multiple choice)

>>12891248
Ugh go back and spam kcs /int/ will ya?

>>12894255
Hey idiot. Literally the first study in that meme says the rat findings are incongruous with human studies. Which means in humans, an increase in malignant tumors WAS found

>>12898124
the strange thing is that for the spiritual father of incels houellebecq gets way too much pussy

he probably didn't in his formative years though

>>12898244
V true. He was a computer janitor in his earlier years wasn't he? Quintessential incel job decades before it was even a phenomenon.

>“It's a fact...that in societies like ours sex truly represents a second system of differentiation, completely independent of money; and as a system of differentiation it functions just as mercilessly. The effects of these two systems are, furthermore, strictly equivalent. Just like unrestrained economic liberalism, and for similar reasons, sexual liberalism produces phenomena of absolute pauperization . Some men make love every day; others five or six times in their life, or never. Some make love with dozens of women; others with none. It's what's known as 'the law of the market'...Economic liberalism is an extension of the domain of the struggle, its extension to all ages and all classes of society. Sexual liberalism is likewise an extension of the domain of the struggle, its extension to all ages and all classes of society.”

>>12898117
Go tell it to reddit
They literally have 100k+ subs about mocking and stalking virgins they lazily call "incels".
Being a sexual hermite is a death sentence

this thread convinced me to take up smoking

>>12898847
take a tip from me kid... if yer'e a real man roll yer own and cut it with glass grit... no filters ya hear? good. see yu round boy

>>12894546
truly exceptional

Not at all. He is trash. A boomer whining about the world his ungrateful greedy soul created.

>>12895834

One cig relaxes you but if you chainsmoke like 5 you are going to feel a little bit hyped

That's because nicotine in low amounts acts as an anxiolytic but turns stimulant once the intake is high.

>>12889882
>is there anything more pretentious than smoking cigarettes?
arguing about it ?

>>12897253
There is absolutly nothing comparable to the Yellow vests in his new book.
He only talks about the farmers going full riot, which is not hard to imagine when you know the number of those people who are killing themselves in France those last few years

>>12901162
Not the nicotine. Nicotine by itself is quite anxiogenic.
There's other compounds in tobacco that contribute to anti-anxiety. I've even read someone suggest low dose carbon monoxide is anxiolytic.

>>12898117
>i have no idea if/how this could be fixed
Didn't you read Soumission? Islam would fix both the employment and the incel problem.

>>12901199
>rural citizens rioting in protest to neoliberal elites ruining their life with economic policies
>nothing to do with yellow vest

>>12889882
bugs.... easy on dem cigarettes

>>12894255
about 1 in 6 smokers will develop lung cancer
among non-smokers (who are not exposed to significant second hand smoke or other major sources of air pollution) the disease is exceedingly rare, one of the rarest of all cancers

>>12896968
Nicotine is a potent nootropic, but it's not the only one or the most potent one
There are other chemicals that can give you a similar effect without the extreme addictive potential or a 10 year reduction to your lifespan
Coffee for instance is also a potent nootropic and mostly harmless as well

>>12897232
Agree and I've read everything he has written.

>>12891248
>And? Was life a contest about who lives the longest?
it obviously isn't in ameriblobistan

>>12891339
Imagine replying to this pasta

>>12901535
t. doesn't understand how self-reporting biases each sample

>>12898181
There are not experimental studies done on humans, brainlet. That would many years, isolation of, and dissection of of the participants, which they should sign you up for if they ever start. All this meaning, the inverse you drawn is horribly flawed, doesn't translate and is completely wrong, and absolutely moot in reference to what the study was saying. The epidemiological case that tobacco causes cancer is predicated on bad science.

>>12901651
t. thinks pointing out trivial complications invalidates 60 years of overwhelming data

>>12901733
A mountain of bad data is still bad data. It's all non-randomized epidemiological studies. They rarely account for lifestyle factors such as diet, exercise, alcohol consumption, drug use, income, or workplace occupational hazard. Properly done epidemiological studies such as those out of Japan in the 1990s and 2000s, showed 1/10th the instance of lung cancer in smokers than the United States (even researchers opposed to smoking acknowledge the Japanese Smoker's Paradox).
Show me a single experimental study that shows tobacco smoke causing cancer in healthy animal subjects.

>>12901805
>showed 1/10th the instance of lung cancer
more like 1/6 and even there it means a Japanese smoker is about 7 times as likely to get lung cancer vs a non smoker (as opposed to about 40x the odds in the US) - the end result is also that lung cancer is simply much rarer in Japan and Asia since among non-smokers the disease is still very rare
and the fact is that no matter what factors you control for the correlation between smoking and lung cancer does not go away or even shrink significantly
basically there are four types of people who get lung cancer: smokers, second hand smokers, people working or living in environments with very bad air pollution and a very few unlucky others

there is also the fact that there are a few different types of lung cancer and non-smokers are more likely to get the less-lethal variants

>>12896968
The anti-smoking crusade was literally a social-engineering experiment. Can we take something that it is deeply embedded in the social fabric and turn it into social anathema in just a few decades?

>>12901877
second hand smoke is bullshit

>>12901928
bartenders and people living with a smoker have like a 50% increased risk of developing lung cancer

Humans are meant to inhale a moderate amount of smoke. I think science is gay but there were studies that showed that increases in certain types of cancer were possibly linked to modern humans inhaling less smoke than ever before. Smoking was a substitute for the loss of the communal fire at the turn of the Industrial Revolution and now with the loss of smoking we have no substitute.

>>12901958
Now this is based and folkpilled

>>12901953
Based on self-reported non-randomized epidemiological cohorts where the surviving family makes there post hoc assessment, AHAAA! I knew it! Smoking killed him fallacious attribution. These people are much more likely to come forward and participate in these studies and in the opposite group, the health conscious are attracted to participate as data for the control. Not to mention, smokers of the past 20 years actually think smoking will kill them, yet do it anyways, meaning the vast majority of the population as whole does not give a rat's ass about their health.

>>12901971
>These people are much more likely to come forward and participate in these studies
here aren't many survivors to volunteer for studies since lung cancer is basically a death sentence (something like 15% 5-year survival chance depending on variant)
this data is collected anonymously from hospitals, not from volunteers

>>12889937
what is his societal critique?

>>12901958
I swear to god this website is gets dumber every fucking day which is a miracle at this point. No, smoking is not healthy and if you smoked then exercised at all ever in your life you'd know that it tanks your performance and thus obviously sucks dick for your health, this is as bad as tumblr chicks shitposting about how it turns out being obese is actually peak health and heart disease is just a patriarchal conspiracy. Thankfully you are so retarded that the thing you are defending is killing you so you'll be turning the ground worms retarded as they eat you sooner than later.

>>12902162
>muh athletic performance and quantitative analysis of life
lol, whatever bugman

>>12902180
>lol, whatever bugman

>>12901561
>coffee
>harmless
Pick one

>>12889841
The Possibility of An Island
Elementary Particles
Whatever
The Map and The Territory
Submission

>>12902180
Except he is right enjoy being out of breath 24/7 for ''muh cognitive boost while shotposting''

>>12902162
keep seething, moron.
tobacco makes you less obese and helps most people out healthwise.

>>12902234
So this is the power of the -pill, whoa.

>>12900912
He attacks boomers though...

>>12902259
the tobaccopill

is there any way to take up smoking as a habbit and make it affordable? would be good to nip off for 5 at work

>>12903716
roll your own lad

also distill your own likker so that you have more money left over for smokes

>>12889841
Don't.
Read Louis Ferdinand-Céline.
Thank me later.

I might just be a bit paranoid (am a little high) but I'm seriously getting the feeling that this thread was just a viral marketing scheme by tobacco shills

>>12895816
Masturbating.
A nice cup of tea works fine too, far better than a cigarette and doesn't leave you smelling bad.
If you're a real patrician, chew coca leaves or process opium.
Fags are really a shit tier drug, and I say that as someone who smoked for years. They offer nothing good and a lot of bad.

>>12903772
Céline’s great, but you’re allowed to read multiple authors, anon!

>>12902199
Me on the left

>>12903983
shit advice
fapping gives me social anxiety and makes me tired.

This dude wrote the incel manifesto then went and married an Asian woman how can anyone take him seriously

>>12906351
I take everyone with an IQ over 140 who smokes tobacco seriously. Not many intelligent people smoke. If you are intelligent and you smoke, that means you are not a part of the matrix.

>>12906356
You mean if I start smoking I will look cool and unique?!? Wow! I can't wait to get started, what brand would you recommend I exclusively smoke to look cool?