/lit/ - Literature

>>21367066
How old are you?

>>21367066
philip k dick

>>21367066
the brief wondrous life of Oscar wao

>>21367080
probably late 30s

Neuromancer

>>21367066
How old are you?

V.

>>21367142
I've seen Lain and read a few of these. How does Kukai relate to Lain?

>>21367066
Just continue watching tranime

>>21367229
your typical wikipedia neet cribnotes collection of texts he's never read but flaunts for 2deep4u effect.. Cybernetics by Weiner is not only hopelessly outdated it's practically unreadable

>>21367256
iirc the anime explicitly references Cybernetics though, so it seems like the creators thought it was important.

>>21367066
Fanged Noumena

>>21367265
in the same way Evangelion references the bible. There's absolutely nothing cybernetic about that anime whatsoever beyond trying to 2deep4u and name drop.

>>21367301
But anon, being 2deep4u is an essential quality of cybernetics. We're talking about the people who had spiritism as a core part of their ideology at one poing.

>>21367066
Scifi:
Philip K. Dick
William Gibson
George Saunders' short stories

Non-scifi, but with a similar surreal and melancholic atmosphere:
New York Trilogy, Music of Chance by Paul Auster
Hardboiled wonderland and the End of the World, 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable by Samuel Beckett
The Unconcoled by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony by Franz Kafka

>>21367310
>>21367066
^Fogot to mention Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time, it's referenced in the final episode as Lain's dad mentions madeileine cookies, which are a significat motive in the novel.

>>21367066
How old is your dog?

>>21367066
my favorite show of all time, it is difficult to find actually similar books but I found these to be related thematically.

>One, No One and One Hundred Thousand is a 1926 novel by the Italian writer Luigi Pirandello.
This is an earlier work discussing the idea of how we are all the creation of those around us. How no man is an island unto himself and all that. Heavily relevant to Lain and how she is the literal embodiment of everyone's consciousness

>Belief by Gianni Vattimo
this is a work by an Italian Catholic philosopher which discusses how the public consciousness has evolved since the time before history when animalism was the dominant religion all the way up to today. He talks about a lot about what he calls the secularization of faith which is the process of attributing less and less phenomena to the gods (like before we thought the weather was caused by gods until we understood the water cycle). I find it relevant because I see Lain as a logical reversal of this process. A likely scenario in which through the creation of an all knowing AI we start to attribute MORE stuff to spiritual/godly reasons instead of less.

and finally
>The Fortunate Fall is the debut and only novel by Raphael Carter, published in 1996.
This is one of the few cyberpunk books I've ever enjoyed (couldn't get into Neuromancer at all) and it has a lot of philosophical questions in it which are similar to ones in Lain. The main character works as a "camera" for a network which steams events live to people around the world wearing headsets which simulate all 5 senses of the reporter for audience members. That job is just the setting though, the novel itself has a very crazy narrative filled with twists and turns.

>>21367330
the reference is about involuntary memory. In the book the smell of madeleine cookies makes the MC remember times when he was little at his grandmas house involuntarily. In the show Lain is asking what became of her friendship with Arisu in the final episodes and her father/god says this because he knows that even though Lain rewrote the world so she never existed the time she spent with Arisu can never been fully erased. Her being will be forever changed by her time knowing Lain even though she can't remember it. Which is why in the final scene when Lain meets up with Arisu she says "everything is ok, we will always be together" or something like that. Lain knows that her impact on Arisu can never be unwritten so in a way she is always with her.

>>21367066
K-on is more philosophically profound than Lain will ever be.

>>21367433
people take it so personally when they don't understand Lain. Your comment is code for "I finished Lain and didn't understand a thing so it must not mean anything".
It's so sad to see because if you actually tried a bit to understand Lain you'd find a lot to like if you're not functionally retarded.
Start here with Thought Experiments Lain and try to expand your mind a bit
https://www.cjas.org/~leng/open.htm

>>21367433
There are plenty of philosophically profound anime series. Some parts of Lain come off as 2deep4u kind of tacky (especially some of its theological musings) but when it comes to questions of identity, belonging and alienation the series is actually quite moving and profound imo.

>>21367127
I, too, don't remember my age

>>21367301
Uhhhh

>>21367482
>It's so sad to see because if you actually tried a bit to understand Lain you'd find a lot to like if you're not functionally retarded.
The same can be said of K-on.

>>21367066
Of all the things ive read, Nova Express by Burroughs is the closest vibe-wise to Lain i think.
The ominous mix between esoteric and high-tech, the language and culture manipulation, high speed viral warfare, etc.

>>21367309
Cybernetics comes from the Greek word for "governor", and is a discipline related to things that are controlled by something. It's not some transhumanist death cult. It's about gauges and balancing mechanisms. People misapply the term cybernetics to refer to cyberpunk fetishism, but there's nothing connecting one thing to the other.
>inb4 muh Fanged Noumena muh Nick Land
That's just some philosophytard's gay schizobook written after rewatching Blade Runner and getting high on psychedelics too many times.

>>21367229
Lain becoming immanent in the Wired and able to manifest at will to anyone anywhere I think is not merely an elaboration of cybernetics, but given the discarding of a god-concept (along with its implication of transcendence) in the later episodes, an expression of Mahayana Buddhism. A major emphasis of Kūkai, and many Buddhist esotericists, is the use of mantras and mandalas to convey doctrinal meanings through symbolic representation and to induce religious experience. In some sense ordinary communication is already symbolic, which is essentially the point—any communication can convey any meaning if the arbitrary rules are understood, which in Shingon becomes highly ornate ritualizations of specific Buddhist meanings. Lain ultimately erases herself from society and attachment but without being "gone" since she can then manifest at will anywhere and everywhere. She goes beyond human communication but does not become incommunicable. It's like the idea that nirvana and samsara are not different.
>>21367256
Cybernetics is there for completeness. Human Use of Human Beings is the more relevant book

>>21367401
>Vattimo

>>21367750
Thank you, this is a good answer.

>>21367750
Good explaination, but I object to the use of the word arbitrary. there rules are usuaally understandable through observations and are not arbitrary as there is method within the madness, otherwise it would not be communication or intelligable.

Also, less important, but more accurately it might not be that Nirvana or samsara or Heaven arent different, but are against different "methodologies" through which a greater whole can be transmitted.

these are really nitpics, but I do think its important for a fuller understanding.

>>21368330
>not arbitrary as there is method within the madness
I mean arbitrary in the sense that there's nothing red about the word red. Or that we might consider flowers beautiful even though they grow in dirt and rot. There's no substance to the designations themselves. So they can all be repurposed or made to express different meanings. Indra's Net is vast, as it were.

here is a video essay on 'serial experiments lain' that makes sense of the series. perhaps you will enjoy it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjtpQWDmEqw

obviously this is not a book.

>>21368378
I guess this is more a point of semantics. the word red does not contain the full aspect of red within itself, but it illudes to something of the sort. even if its a pigeonholed, imperfect method (which it is).

I guess I find the phrase "arbitrary rules" an oxymoron. They are particulars, not universals. another particular may be mobilized to express a similar thing. But particularity doesn't mean non substance, just lack of totality and a degree of fluidity.

I was wondering
Would you say Ted K should be put in a Lain readlist?

>>21368425
ew, no, why?

>>21368580
really? you cant think of any reason why a show that ends with an AI believing that humans need to be more natural and less reliant on technology could be related to Ted Kaczynski? you ain't to bright are you.

>>21368978
wow anon. Get the most surfacelevel take you can, will you.

>>21367142
This is almost perfect, just add Search of Lost Time. The ending of the show directly references the Madeline thing

>>21368978
>all criticism of technology is anprim terrorism
ok libtard

>>21367066
>Philip K Dick
Pick anyone of his short stories or novels. Focus on the paranoia.
>They Became What They Beheld by Edmund Carpenter
Description of media's effects told with text and image.
>4.48 Psychosis by Sarah Kane
Replied just to recommend this because everything I had read about the show never talked about Lain disassociating. The show actually captured what it feels like to not be in your own body.

>>21369085
I want to turn your skull into a tube of toothpaste through which I squeeze your brains.

>>21367066
Isn't it just Neuromancer, but anime?

>>21367142
embarassing

>>21367066
they dont exist. i am writing one right now, however. it will be done in 3 years. it is set in the 00s

>>21369791
Nah, this one is actually good.

>Boring story
lame
>Boring story, Japan.
WOW~!

>>21370777
hey, buddy. fuck you. okay!?!?
japan isn't "AWAO!!!" because it's 'le japan based Based! BASED!!!' it's AWAO!!! because it has a deeply rooted culture with meaning in every turn of the rock. something an AMERICAN would know about! japan is ancient, okay? their monarchy is literally older than most of the countries in the entire world. japan has a honour culture that displays their deep respect for principles and tradition. in short, japan is based and it is reflected in their every stroke genius brought to the humble computer screen. this little window, the digital screen, is a doorway into japan's immense cultural achievement. so, yes. 'boring' (entirely debatable) story, japan... WOW~!

i rest my case...
i accept apologies.

>>21370768
N

>>21369811
Your mom is embarassing xd

>>21369213
>Philip K Dick
>Pick anyone of his short stories or novels. Focus on the paranoia.
Few recs that might fit the theme:
>Volume 1
Colony
The Defenders
The Great C
>Volume 2
Impostor
Second Variety
The Commuter
Small Town
Human Is
>Volume 3
The Hanging Stranger
Exhibit Piece
Shell Game
>Volume 4
If There Were No Benny Cemoli
The Mold of Yancy
Novelty Act [later became a part of Simulacra, but is great on its own too]
>Volume 5
haven't read yet. Hopefully, it has lots of schizo stories.

>>21370834
E

>>21370805
> supremacist, tortured civilians for sport during WW2
> glorification and sexualization of violence against women
> pedophilia is tolerated
> toxic work culture
> one of the highest suicide rates in the world
> 5th lowest birth rate in the world, too racist to accept immigrants
> invented anime

Japanese culture is disgusting. There's a reason that every nearby country hates the inhabitants of that cursed island.

>>21367482
There is no deeper meaning in Lain, it's just random pretentious bullshit. It's like dark souls lore: the creator just makes a bunch of vague yet loosely connected shit up and the fans try to piece it together to find deeper meaning where there is none. I'm a reasonably intelligent who reads plenty of difficult books, and I found Lain to be complete nonsense. The fact that none of the fans can explain anything in it and just retort with "you didn't understand it" is proof of that fact.

>>21372376
Literally whole world hates USA.

>>21367267
>meme nick land book from five years ago
/lit/ seriously needs to actually start reading books

>>21372481
>I'm a reasonably intelligent who reads plenty of difficult books

>>21372481
It's funny how much of nip shit can be described this way. Lain, Dark Souls, Evangelion, Ghost in the Shell, Akira, basically everything westerners try to "interpret" is just some nip potpourri of a few buzzwords they saw on wikipedia like gnosticism. Deep secret meanings just aren't a nip thing, they stay at a purely imagistic fantastical visual surface layer.

>>21373929
the unrealistic dialogue (low verbal iq) appeals to socially inept autists

>>21367482
>https://www.cjas.org/~leng/open.htm
Looks interesting. Maybe I'll give Lain a rewatch and read along sometime

>>21372481
I just finished watching it a few days ago. I think there are some interesting concepts in Lain, wouldn't brush it all off as "random pretentious bullshit". However I wouldn't go out of my way to search for deeper meaning, I just watched it and enjoyed it for what it is. It did have that "art" feel, which most animes today don't

>>21373929
Evangelion is very clearly inspired by GR

The Invention of Morel

>>21372481
Ok mr big boy if you're so smart why don't you create a thoughtful work that resonates with lots of people decades later

>>21372481
>>21373929
>filtered by a japanese cartoon

>>21367066
To this day, one of my favorite series.

>>21372481
Oh, boy...

>>21373929
Oh, boy...

You kids really should spend more time thinking and less time talking.

>>21375973
>>21375977
shut up faggot weeb tranny

>>21367433
fuck off digibro

>>21375998
Oh, boy...

>>21367142
HAHA THIS DUDE IS NAMED WIENER

>>21373929
congrats on having the dumbest take I've seen today

>>21372481
I partly agree with you but I think many of those eastern stories that are considered deep fail to be understood by many people is simply because we try too much to rationalize the experience. I've watched it a few times, and I feel like I understand what it means, though I don't think I can put in words and explain it to you. But isn't the same with Art? Music? Poetry? it's supposed to be understood on a sub concious level, simply put.

>>21376243
kek

>>21376513
>>21372481
>>21373929
No. No, lads. It isn't that you rationalize it too much, but that your powers of rational thought are too weak. Lain, Akira, and many others have clear, definite points of view, as well as a plethora of implied conjectures. Don't assume because you haven't understood a point there isn't one to be understood.