/lit/ - Literature

Currently reading Leopardi's Canti. Beatutiful, sad and moving. Also reading Seiobo There Below. The way it transports you into the characters lives and setting is impressive and the prose is insanely good and captivating, very thrilling read so far.

>>18034239
I'm currently reading Chronicles of the Black Company. It's pretty good as far as fantasy goes. I can't say I really care about the characters or the setting all that much, but the writing style is interesting. I'd seen it on /sffg/ a few times and also in other places online, so I decided to give it a go.

Last finished was The Left Hand of Darkness. It was decent, but the second half was much better than the first half.

I'm probably going to either read The Years of Rice and Salt or Fifteen Dogs next. I've heard good things about both of them.

>>18034239
The Odyssey, Fitzgerald Translation. Just read Book 9 and it felt different from the rest but strangely moving, I love the way it focuses on the role of the Poet. Also Shelby Foote's Civil War Volume 1, its great but I'm not far into it

>>18034239
I've been interested in Buddhist literature for awhile, so I've read some Mahayana Sutras and I'm currently reading the Dhammapada, translater by Eknath Easwaran. It's got a very lengthy and good intro that tells the story of the Buddha's life time, and breaks down some of Theravada philosophy and the way dhyana works. Very good read, almost done with it.

Anybody here knows what other books and sutras I need to have fully delved into Theravada? I'd also be curious about what any of Buddha's immediate disciples went on to write and teach. I'll save delving more completely into Mahayana once I've fully exploree Theravada and have had time to memorize a few hundred more terms.

Just finished Twilight of the Idols and I liked it more than Zarathustra. All of his writtings seem to be rehashing the same ideas though, which I find a little funny considering he wrote that he tries to say in ten sentences what it takes others a book to say and here he is repeating himself over the course of several. Maybe this is eternal recurrence? All of this isn't to say I haven't enjoyed everything I've read by him; I have, quite a bit infact. Will be moving on to Antichrist after this post.

Thanks for remaking this general op!

Currently reading Lonesome Dove; I'm on page 573 out of about 950, and I don't know how to feel so far. On one hand, I see the cracks; the author tends to repeat himself or over-explain things–although there are times when he knows to let the characters speak for themselves. Case in point, when Gus comes back to the herd after rescuing Lorena, it doesn't tell us how Call feels exactly but you can still tell how relieved he is to see Gus through their dialog, the author doesn't explain anything but you still feel it. Also why does bad stuff always happen when it switches to Newt's point of view???

I've been a bit shocked by some moments so far, especially when Joe, Roscoe and Janey all just die, its so sudden you don't really know how to feel. Actually all the deaths feel like that so far, the two boys that died on the cattle drive too. Also the sudden violence, like when the Kiowas castrate and scalp Dog Face and leave him alive, or when Big Zwey smashes that other guy's head against the wagon wheel, catches you off guard but not in a bad way.

The characters are really where the novel shines for me. They're 'realistic' enough for you to care about them but 'characterized' enough to be memorable. So far Call is the most interesting one, but only because it still hasn't explained why he wants to go to Montana so bad; even Gus doesn't understand it yet. Lorena isn't that interesting, you feel bad July Johnson and I've come to hate Elmira. Deets is a cool character. I read somewhere that the novel is kind of a tribute to that old, rugged cowboy-version of manhood, and you start to admire the characters because of it (or you start to hate them because of it, in the case of Jake Spoon). Also I haven't seen the miniseries but I have seen pictures of the cast. Tommy Lee Jones seems pretty fitting for Call (if only because of his performance in NCFOM), but I keep seeing Gus as Sam Eliot, and Deets as that guy who plays the black cowboy/main character in Blazing Saddles

So far, the novel hasn't really blown me away or left me speechless, but I know there's still plenty of time for plenty of things to happen in the last 400 pages. I'm open to discussing it so far, but no spoilers please (I already had Deet's death spoiled for me, and I'm not looking forward to it)

i'm reading st john chrysostomus' homilies on the st matthew's gospel, pretty awesome

>>18034464
The Fitzgerald translation is pretty kino

I'm really enjoying it so far. Cronon manages to make shit like grain elevator regulations and railroad shipping rates seem like the most interesting things in the world.

>>18034399
I have mixed feelings about The Years of Rice and Salt. The concept of following the same cast of characters through multiple reincarnations is great, but the different sections varied widely in quality and most of the "alternate history" stuff ended up being either slightly modified eastern history or western history given an eastern makeover. For instance, there's a great continental war with trenches, artillery, and mass mobilization in the early 20th century - but it's between Arabs and Chinese rather than Germans and French. There's no real reason for the story to take place in an alt-history setting and after a point it starts to feel kind of stupid, like near the end when he's making student protestors and the New Left show up in 60s France - that also has been under the control of an Islamic caliphate since the middle ages.

>>18036196
Huh, I'd heard a lot of mixed opinions about it but you're the first person who I've seen name some specific issues. It's too bad that it ends up mirroring real history so closely. I'd hoped for the opposite given how early and how big the divergence was.
I'll probably put it off for now and switch in something a bit lower on my list. Probably Pride and Prejudice since I've been meaning to read that for a while.

>>18036228
I'd say it's still worth reading, just that you should temper your expectations a bit, especially if you're more interested in seeing how he develops the setting. It reads kind of like a short story collection with the same reoccurring cast of characters and while I thought some of the stories were lame, others were really good.

Honestly this is the scariest thing I've read so far from King which I didn't expect.

>>18036434
What do you think made it so much scarier? I've heard a lot of good things about it but I'm dubious since I've never been scared by longer stories.

>>18036617
It's scary because the plague element of it could really happen...he shows how easy and how fast such a virus could spread. I'm not far into the book though so it could wear out its welcome. I usually find short stories scarier too so I pretty much came into this just expecting to read an epic story

>>18034467
Four bases of mindfulness
Anapanasati
The Shorter Set of Questions & Answers
The Greater Set of Questions & Answers

>>18034239
It's pretty good, I am about 2/3 of the way through. I wish he would have spent more time talking about Agrippa and and Previous in the early years, but overall it's fairly objective and full of interesting bits of information.
I would recommend it to anyone who has an interest in this sort of thing.