/lit/ - Literature

>>22637799
The Count of Monte Cristo (UNABRIDGED)

>>22637799
Catcher in the rye. If you mean classical antiquity then some Roman texts can be pretty dry desu.

>>22637799
I hate Hemingway I think he's just a redditor from 100 years ago. Glad that fag pinko shot himself. I've tried to read the old man and the sea like 5 times and it was liberating throwing it out and just admitting that he's shit

>>22637799
The Scarlet Letter.

"Classic" as in "canonized work" or as in "any old book"?

Memories of Hadrian

Antoninius Pius is one of my top five roman emperors now BECAUSE OF HOW BORING HE IS AND HOW THAT MAKES TAHT FUCKING FAGGOT HADRIAN SEETHE SO MUCH, EAT SHIT, YOU MOTHERFUCKER, EAT SHIT TOO, MIKE DUNCAN! HADRIAN FANBOYS GET THE ROPE!

>>22637799
henry james is excruciatingly boring

>>22637799
honestly all classics are pseud trash

>>22637799
Obligatory Ayn Rand mention, but also Wuthering Weights was AWFUL. Also Crime and Punishment was abysmal, one of the worst books I've ever read. One Hundred Years of Solitude was dreadful as well.

>>22638018
ALL classics? That kind of broad statement is something a pseud would say.

More of a modern classic but Confusions of Young Törleß (is that the English title?) was atrocious.

>>22637799
East of Eden by Steinbeck

>>22637799
Last Of The Mohicans

>>22637799
Probably Oblomov or Vanity Fair.

>>22637799
Middlemarch or Pride and Prejudice
Middlemarch was fine until the uncle started to get into politics, it got so in the weeds on centuries old politics that I couldn't follow it at all. Moving from focusing on Dorthea and her weirdo mentality leading her to marry the wrong man to Lydgates irresponsible spending on his bitch of a wife also didn't help. Pride and Prejudice is just a poor quality novel.

>>22637799
Anything written by Jane Austen, as well as anything considered to be sensation fiction from the late 1800’s.

I’ve yet to encounter a female writer who’s explorations are not focused on the trivial, the mundane, and the domestic; or which blather on and on about the trite difficulties of being a woman and having all of societal structure being built to take care of you (boo-hoo!)

>>22637814
>>22637878
>>22638011
These are the exact three things I wanted to say and I'm stunned that they were in the first few posts.

Re: James - "The Golden Bowl" and "The Bostonians" are two of the most pointless things I've ever read, though I did like "Washington Square".

>>22638149
Try reading Wilkie Collins. If you don't like him either then there's no helping you.

A Death In Venice.
Some old fag obsesses about a young boy and then dies or something. What the hell was the point???

>>22637799
The Monk by Matthew Lewis. Fine prose, and enjoyable scenes but it's very unoriginal.

>>22638149
I'm reading Middlemarch right now and your comment perfectly apply

>>22638109
This. My god, the movie just fucking mogs it by several miles. The only classic I didn’t like reading.

>>22638054
nobody thinks ayn rand is classic literature

>>22639035
You are incorrect

>>22638000
you're such an obnoxious worm

>>22637799
Brother karamazov

>>22637799
Dhammapada
Analects
Both were awful.

>>22639073
explain

>>22637799
Ulysses

>>22638011
You have been filtered, that is to say, your brain is rather small (much too small) to understand the, if I'm being frank(and I am), genius of the late, great, Henry James. His works, meaning, his literary works, meaning, his writings do, indeed, have a tendancy to filter- as if it were a sift- out the small brained individuals, that is to say, "(You)", like a grain of rice being washed beneath the faucet in a sieve.
You, sir, are, to put it simply, wrong and stupid

>>22639088
Ha, which do you think isn't awful? Have you read them? Dhammapada is third rate ad copy. Like he's trying to sell me a used car.

Analects was awful. Ugh I can't even remember. I just wanted it to stop.

>>22638149
that's because foids are inherently solipsistic

>>22638054
>not liking wuthering height's, C&P and hundred years of solitude
I mean, not liking 1 of those books I can excuse, but in your case, 3 points form a line. I'm afraid you objectively have shit taste.

>>22639135
seconded

>>22637799
Siddhartha. It's just a hippie weirdo trying to convince you that he's OMG LITEARLLY LIKE SIDARTHA GAUTAMA because he simps for brown women

>>22639369
Dosto is a horrendously bad author on the level of those atrocious Spanish language soap operas which feature evil long lost twins and cringe-worthy melodramatic love affairs. I have yet to hear a defense of Wuthering Heights which does not boil down to "you're supposed to hate every character and everything they do" and in my opinion, that makes for a shit novel. One Hundred Years of Solitude could, perhaps, have some redeeming merit if it were heavily edited and certain main threads reworked. In short, until I hear actual arguments as to why any of these novels have merit from you, I'm going to assume you're just a typical /lit/ airhead who absorbed the received opinions of the masses and internalizes them to color your perception of each novel rather than actually critically reading it and forming an opinion of your own. In fact, I may go so far as to say that if an individual does not strongly dislike a generally beloved novel at least every now and then, they are a bore, a pseud, and the very quintessential midwit.

>>22639235
I thought they were both excellent. What do you think of the tao te ching?
I am Christian but sometimes I wish there was more Christian wisdom in the style of eastern wisdom, I like how it is more direct and philosophical in a sense

>>22637799
Dracula; only 25% was worth reading, the other 75% could have been edited down

>>22637802
I’ve been thinking about giving the old brick another read

>>22639064
I honestly don’t remember anything about it. It seemed meaningful at the time and I was definitely distracted, but nothing at all

>>22639638
It sounds to me that you are only interested in "hero's journey" type narratives. All three of the authors you have cited concern themselves primarily with the human condition and the evil that afflicts it, that's what makes them so successful. Raskolnikov, Heathcliff and Aureliano Buendia are not likable characters, but they are unlikable in realistic ways, and in all three cases one can see something of their origins to determine how they ended up flawed, and perhaps determine kernels of possible salvation left in their soul. This is
a perfectly well-established style of literature, and you don't make yourself look clever by writing off three of the greatest novelists ever.

>>22637992
I just read that for the first time a few months ago. I liked it. Particularly the scenes of Hester and Pearl, shunned and outcast. But they have each other. I enjoyed the descriptions of them living in that bittersweetness. Walking around together. I didn't like the framing device with how the opening of the novel is about working in a post office and trying to convince you that this is a real story. It drags for so long. Frankenstein has that too. A framing device where characters are introduced that are barely related to the story and exist after the story has happened and then they sort of go backwards and recount it to the reader. Maybe that was a cool thing in 19th lit. I haven't read enough to know.

Demons

>>22638005
>seethe
You’re literally seething right now. Hadrian destroyed the Jews and fucked femboy bussy and you’re seething

Frankenstein
Monte Cristo

Leo Tolstoy 'Resurrection'

>>22637799
Pretty much every from russian lit I have read was shit. First I thought: maybe it's because of expectations, since everyone said how profound it is. Then I read more and - it's just bad. I regret wasting time with it.

>>22639667
I’m reading this now for spooky season. It’s okay but the one bitch’s letters about her courters are fucking lame. Just get back to the creepy shit.

>>22639686
This book is awesome idk what that faggot is talking about. You’ve got to at least get to the part where they visit Rome during carnival about half way through. That is peak literature right there.

>>22639907
Wtf what books have you tried reading? Read fathers and sons before you write off russian lit. If you dont like that then there isn’t any hope for you.

>>22638122
Vanity Fair is a genious book dude.

>>22639753
BASADO

Most of the Decameron is pretty shit

>>22639916
Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky
The Idiot by Dostoevsky
Eugene Onegin by Pushkin
Anna Karenina by Tolstoy
Doctor Zhivago by Pasternak
Gulag Archipelago by Solzhenitsyn

The last one I have read was Gulag Archipelago - when everyone was sucking Peterson's knob.

Also read some collection of fairy tales(?) by Pushkin (I think) - when I was a kid, don't remember much, only that I liked those.

I can look into fathers and sons, but at this point, i don't know...

>>22639914
The book is great but the unabridged version is torture. Multiple pages spent on mystifying character emotions, descriptions of articles which would eventually go on tangents concerning its origin and how the artisans are such honourable people. It's one of the best without the fluff.

>>22637799
I didnt't like Dracula

>>22637878
Yeah I'm real 50/50 on Hemingway. I liked A farewell to arms. But Man, most of his other stuff is so painful to read.

>>22640063
same. One of the few classics I actually got bored of

>>22639795
>A framing device where characters are introduced that are barely related to the story and exist after the story has happened and then they sort of go backwards and recount it to the reader. Maybe that was a cool thing in 19th lit. I haven't read enough to know.
Seems to have been, now that you mention it. I can think of a number of titles that have that. Off the top of my head A Hero Of Our Times, Kreuzersonata, lots by Turgenjew...
At least in Kreuzersonata it was somewhat relevant to the story as the old man reflected on his deeds. I think it's not bad per se but often badly implemented.

>>22639938
You didnt like gulg archipelago? Anna karennina is fucking gay and the idiot is dos’ worst book. C&p is good but nothing compared to brother karamazov.

Youre reading these giant books, try something more chill. Fathers and sons doesnt try to be super extensive its just beautiful.

>>22639938
if you really can't see the brilliance in this many masterpieces, then the issue is almost certainly with you, not actually with those works. Seems like high literature in general just isn't for you.

>>22640114
Subject was interesting, but it was - dull? Maybe abridged version is better? Also I didn't finish it.

I heard Karamazov is better, but I had a second-hand copy of C&P, so I read that.

I will give Fathers and sons a try. Thank you for recommendation.

>>22640154
That might be true. Although, I do have this issue only with russian lit. ¯\(ツ)/¯

>>22640167
Ya i did read the abridged version of gulag, it was exciting. Hope you like F and S bro

The Great Gatsby. Seemed very pointless and affected. Made me realise that most classics are not some great epochal works of genius like Dante or Faust or Moby Dick, but merely popular entertainment products of their time.

The Man without Qualities by Musil.
Just a smug and subversive stream of consciousness, there is little of value and seems more like a book to boast about having read it than to enjoy it.

>>22639656
I liked the Tao te ching. And Zhuangzi was ok, but sometimes kind of boring.

>>22639656
Oh, also, I thought the Bible's wisdom books are pretty direct. But there is thousands of years of church father writing and thousands of modern Christian books. I'd say there is plenty available.

>>22639753
>three of the greatest novelists ever.
Three of the most-assigned mandatory high school reading books.

>>22637799
The Brothers Karamazov

>>22638103
One of the few books I DNF.

>>22639135
You actually read it?

>>22637799
catch 22
lolita
journey to the end of shite (the night for you autists)
yeah. Well i can admit i didn't finish any of them but i read enough to know that this wasn't my kind of literature.
>inb4 filtered
they are midwit tier, and nabokov is the literary equivalent of an 80's guitar virtuiso. All technique, no style. suck on it, fags.

>>22640226
>The Great Gatsby
Agreed. I think it only has it's reputation because it is short enough to be required reading by every undergrad that went to a liberal arts school. It isn't good, it's just widely read.

>>22639753
No, I do not object to soul-searching and self-revelation, but in those books the soul, and the sins, and the sentimentality, and the journalese, hardly warrant the tedious and muddled search.

>>22638061
only a pseud would say that a pseud would say that a pseud would say that all classics aren't pseud trash.

>>22640991
>catch 22
Uhhhh.... did you finish the book or quit a third of the way through?

>>22640999
checked

Every Sethian or Valentinian Gnostic texts. The texts are so fucking long-winded and boring to read. And their Platonic dialogue is the best aspect of it.

>>22641001
i quit somewhere in the beginning when it was all wonky and failed at being funny or in any way appealing. felt like the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, which is another shit book i didn't finish.

>>22641015
OK, here's the thing about Catch-22: you got power through like the first third of it, but I assure you it all wraps up in the end.

I almost put it down a dozen times, but was told the same thing that I am telling you.

I suggest that you give it another shot. It's one of the greatest books ever written, IMHO.

>>22641069
thanks anon, i might do that.

>>22639753
There are several interesting things in your comment, and I'll address the last one first. I don't voice my opinion to "make myself look clever", and this little jab tells me more about your ego than anything. I merely wish to discuss literature and exchange ideas and points of view with the goal of better understanding the appeal of such works. It is good that you agree these books center on unlikable characters who spend their entire respective novels miserable. My criticism of these novels is that they are a mess, they do not ring as authentic to me, but rather that they sensationalize suffering and elevate it to a kind of sadomasochistic level wherein the only insight into the human spirit is man's ability to wallow in suffering of his own making. This seems no fit subject for lofty literary endeavors. Don't mistake me, tragedy can be masterfully handled to create a work which delivers everything you have so far remarked are the merits of these novels. But these particular novels are trite, melodramatic, shallow in their depiction of characters who are drawn to the creation of their own suffering. If I wanted to see self destructive tenancies I would drive through my local urban center to watch the drugged out homeless people who populate such places. And the saccharine "happy ending" of salvation and marriage for the likes of Rasky was cheap to say the least. I think the true appeal of these novels is as I said before, the appeal of sadomasochism. Some people seem to revel in misery and suffering, they get a kind of sick morbid thrill from it, both from the original misery and then from the just punishment because they have been just such a bad boy. I will even venture to suggest there is an element of sexual gratification through this suffering and then the righteous endurance of the deserved punishment. This is lurid in the extreme and should be placed at the literary level of a harlequin romance novel.

Read this because Lovecraft cited it as an influence
Read forward. Poe liked it too.
And of course Melville fucking loved Hawthorne
And I liked a few of his short stories to be honest. Particularly Young Goodman Brown. It’s one of my favorite short stories.
It took me nearly two weeks to read less than 250 pages. It was just so slow. I finally finished because sunk cost fallacy but unfortunately I literally died of boredom. I am typing this with my ghostly little fingers.

>>22637799
Crime and Punishment or The Stranger. I think they're both fairly transparent thematically, fairly "undercooked" story-wise.

>>22637878
I read the old man and the sea where he wrote the book in South America. It was a great experience.

>>22637799
Anything from ancient Greece or ancient Rome, boring ass poem shit about irrelevant or imaginary people only they cared about

>>22640792
only wuthering heights is commonly assigned in western countries

>>22639401
Hesse isn’t even that profound and still your retard gorilla nigger ass managed to get filtered by baby’s first eastern spirituality text.

Let's be real here, this book is dry as fuck.

the Sound and the Fury was pretty mid but I liked it enough to finish it, there's several "classics" I dropped a quarter or so of the way through

>>22639667
I came here to say this.

>>22637878
I hate to say it but you were literally and unironically filtered. Though you could've started with his better books like For Whom The Bell Tolls.

If you consider The Lighthouse at the End of the World (by Verne) and The Alchemist (Coelho) as classics, then those are my picks.

>>22639401
You mismatched the whole plot. Your description sounds like if you were heavily drunk while reading it.

>>22639667
>>22640063
Dracula it's the only book that I read where the excessively long descriptions are meaningful. It's incredibly immersive with its atmosphere. Something fundamental for a horror novel.

>>22639881
>Frankenstein
Why?

>>22639907
The Little Hero (by Fyodor Dostoevsky) is the most emotional piece of writing I have ever read. It almost made me cry. You should try it.

>>22641103
I think The Stranger is supposed to have a "dry" writing since the protagonist has literally no emotions. This dullness in the writing is how he sees the world.

>>22639053
Thanks.

>>22638149
i liked piranesi

>>22642143
Never heard of A Little Hero, it doesn't even have a Wikipedia page

>>22642143
I would never consider the Alchemist a classic, it is however by and by far the worst novel I've ever read. I mean this completely and sincerely, if anyone reading this has read The Alchemist and liked it please consider suicide.

Great Expectations. Validates every genocide commies ever commit.

>>22639667
I would say its closer to 40/60
First hundred pages are perfect
Last hundred are very good but a touch overly dramatic
Middle 300 couldve been cut down to 100. Way too drawn out. Only really based parts were the ship and when they go to find Lucy

>>22640991
Catch-22 is based, you are probably of German descent and dont understand humour
Lolita and Journie are dust-bin tier pseud books. Lolita i finished and hated, Celine i consider unreadable. If he wasnt a Nazi bootlicker he would be totally forgotten on here

>>22640994
Even if you dont like the story or the characters Gatsy is worthwhile for the prose. Truly F Scott is one of the extremely rare novelists that actually understood Keats

>>22637799
I don't understand why people like The Scarlet Letter. Maybe I just need to revisit Hawthorne but I fucking hated that book. I have vague memories of reading another of his novels (The Blithedale Romance, maybe?) and disliking that one as well. Well, not active dislike, not even hatred of that one, just a complete, flat-affect lukewarmness.

>>22640991
>80's guitar virtuiso. All technique, no style
be more specific

>>22642927
"The Brown Sound"

>>22637799
The Bible easily. It's strangely organized and formatted, it's repetitive, the characterization and plot are poor, and it takes itself too seriously.

The Unvanquished by Falkner
Ho-lee fuck I doubt I'll ever be able to bring myself to read something of his that's actually quality because Unvanquished just sucked so much absolute shit.
Also I just cannot keep my eyes open reading the Roman works that I've attempted. Parallel Lives is supremely uninteresting (which is kind of understandable since its just a commentary track) but the Aeneid reads like bad community theater and The Gaelic Wars was supremely uninteresting compared to Greek campaign histories.

>>22643049
>characterization and plot are poor
>in the Bible
Top fucking kek saving this one for later

>>22642898
I vaguely remember Scarlet Letter being uninteresting

>>22642769
I couldn't keep interest in it when the kid stopped hanging out with the homeless guy in the swamp and went to the old bedridden bitch's house

>>22642898
His short stories are much better than his novels, I have no idea how Scarlet Letter became a school standard.
>>22642769
The novel has extremely striking images and a few beautiful passages crammed between a million wasted words.

>>22637799
Ulysses

>>22639667
Only thing I disliked about that book were Van Helsings stupid intentional grammar errors, that shit got really jarring after a while. Not sure why everyone seems to hate the pacing of the book, I thought it was a page turner from start to finish and the more mundane diary entries early on were great at building suspense.

>>22643049
the Bible is a library of books by dozens of different authors. I bet some of those same exact stories would be absolutely beloved classic ancient literature by many an atheist if they were not included in the Bible and instead of referencing God with a capital G, they were referencing the highest god in some pagan pantheon.
Take the Book of Job for instance, keep the plot the exact same but change God into Zeus and it would 100% be considered one of the all time great classics of greek literature.

>>22637799
I like some of Hesse's novels, especially Narcissus and Goldmund, but Steppenwolf is one of my least favorite novels.

I also didn't care for The Savage Detectives, which is already basically canonized.

Just lol at all the filtered pseuds saying Ulysses

>>22637799
Not sure if its considered a classic, but The Last of the Wine was retarded. I slogged through the first 100 or so pages before i realised what irritated me about it - if you ignore the historical namedropping and the very peripheral but moderately interesting speculations about day to day life in ancient greece, its basically a book written from the perspective of a teenage girl (though in this case, a twink).

>>22643276
Meh, the best of the Bible doesn't even compare with something like Aesop's Fables.

>>22642465
I discovered it by accident in a compilation. I'm glad I did. It's a coming-of-age short story about a kid who falls in love with a woman. Dosto writing is so profound that the story is a mix between nostalgia and the suffering of a kid due to his immature misanderstunding about the world. It reminded me a lot of my experiences as a child.

>>22642569
Nah, me neither. It's pure trash. I don't understand how it sold so well.

>>22638005
>>22639868
wrong
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QVh3kj7CjA&ab_channel=LeatherApronClub
timestamp 51:45 for Hadrian

>>22639142
woefully underrated and dare I even say, based

>>22637814
I hate Catcher in the Rye so fucking much it's unreal.
for modern 'classics' Blood Meridian can't be beat, it's pure shit, hate that book too.

>>22642927
NTA, but I get it, Nabby's writing is just a lot of showboating and wank, yeah he's got the insane prose, but there's no soul behind it.

>>22638011
THIS

>>22640114
Which translation (of Fathers & Sons)?

>>22642465
It does, just not in (((English)))

>>22640991
>>22644992
People mistake the excellence of Nabokov's writing for the whole of the work. The comparison to virtuoso guitarist is apt, but for the wrong reason people so fixate on the writing they fail to engage with the deeper themes of longing nostalgia, emigration, the inexorable march of time, and the distinction between the simulacra and the real.
Reading early Nabokov will actually help in reading late Nabokov because the more standard nature of the work clarifies and elucidates some of the themes he is still concerned with in his later novels.

>>22643276
>Book of Job

Absolutely horrible. The three Job's friends are the only good part of it because they actually analyze human suffering in a deep way (something weird for the Bible).
But other than that, it's about a God so insecure about human faith that he has to make a deal with the Devil. The fourth Job friend pretends to be better than the other three by just saying "GOD GOOD. JOB RETARDED". And the worst part of it is that God actually LOSES the deal since Job would have continued in a state of negation if it wasn't for God's interruption.
Just a fucking idiotic book.

>>22641103
Kind of agree on The Stranger. Camus' writing isn't bad, but the book as a whole left me confused. I really don't understand what the point of it was. Then again, maybe my brain is just too smooth.

Paradise Lost

>>22644962
I really enjoyed Blood Meridian, the Judge was such a fascinating character

>>22637799
dkn quixote was utter trash.

>>22638005
Hadrian wasn’t gay, the only Roman source that asserts that is the Historia Augusta, which was written centuries after Hadrian and is known for being fictitious and unreliable. May his bones be crushed, eh Moshe?

Apart from the first few pages, The Confession of a Child of the Century by Alfred de Musset is fucking pathetic and was painful to read.

>>22638892
>psychology / soul of the artist
>beauty vs
>growing old
>death
>greek mythology, platon
>obsession
>artists like young boys mayb

>>22637799
Anything by Hesse

This thread is full pf trannies and negros

>>22641740
>Hesse isn’t even that profound
He isn't profound. Period. You're malding because I insulted the faggy hippie garbage you've read in highschool.
>>22642143
>You mismatched the whole plot
Huh? I didn't even attempt to describe the novel's plot. You're just being defensive like the other faggot that replied to my post.

>>22645467
>the inexorable march of time
Always noticed he captures this very intensely in his novels. I think one has to have a certain sensibility to appreciate the substance of Nabby, and that’s not to mention his unmatched style.

>>22639401
Seconded, Siddhartha is Coelho-tier garbage.

>>22639638
t. never been in love
NGMI

>>22645754
Did you like the movie "Drive" featuring Ryan Gosling?

>>22645467
>>22647245
And what if i've explored those themes enough to not care for them in literature? Am i by default filtered because you postulate that one has to enjoy them or be filtered? Or is it rather, to stick with the music analogy, melodies that perhaps are decent, but that i am bored of while they are also being ruined by the arrangement and choice of instruments?
I must admit i do hold a bit of a grudge against Nabokov due to his seeming arrogance in combination with him being praised constantly by people who at least partially have literature as an identity. He's not bad, just overrated.

>>22647472
>because you postulate that one has to enjoy them or be filtered
Where did I say this? I explicitly said you have to have a certain sensibility to appreciate him. But considering his technical mastery alone, he's not overrated just because he doesn't appeal to you on a personal level.

>>22645745
oh shut the fuck up. As I said, if the Book of Job was starring Jove and was a short story in Ovid's Metamorphoses, you edgelords would all love it. You know I'm right.

>>22637799
I found Camus' Stranger lame. Preferred Shakespeare and Dostoevsky in high school.

>>22647528
No.

>>22647472
You just admitted that you're basing your opinions on the man based on outside factors instead of his works. This is in fact what being filtered is like.

>>22647317
You couldn't be more wrong

>>22646762
Eastern religion is just more interesting than Western religion. Cope and seethe.

>>22648160
>basing all of my opinions of his works on outside factors
>letting outside factors shine a light on the written work, since they do give some insight into a mans psyche
these are two different things and the second is increasingly recommended the higher a work of literature is valued. With fantasy schlock you don't give a fuck about who wrote it, but if someone is supposedly delivering sublime insights into whatever the fuck it is very important to understand the position of said person. Unless you're reading analytic philosophy.
>this is what being filtered is like
no, being filtered is reading the actual material and not getting it. You first of all fail at understanding my post, then reveal that you don't even understand what a common expression on this site means, yet insist on using it in a derogatory way. Why do you even bother posting?

>>22647503
you didn't, but we all know that disapproving of one of the most spammed books on /lit/ automatically induces "filtered"-mania in the fanboys. Hence, i had to assume it, and you know you woulda written it if i hadn't called you on it :^)

>>22639638
100 years is the best novel of the last century.

>>22648211
>eastern fairy tales are more more interesting than western fairy tales
Okay, and?

>>22649032
You have either horrendously bad taste or have only that novel as a reference point for that statement.

Grapes of Wrath

>>22649158
Elaborate

>>22637799
illiad
>2 paragraphs describing a dude and his whole lineage, and he took an arrow to the spine at the battle of ____
>rinse and repeat ad infinitum

>>22649225
I don't say this much but unironically filtered

>>22649230
good, id rather be "filtered" than have such little dopamine i could sit through 800 pages of slop that has been chinese whispered over 2000+ years. Saying you enjoy any of homer's work is like saying you enjoy watching paint dry all of it is so fucking dull im confident the only reason pseuds like you think its good is because its old and the older the work the more likely you are to have faggots defending its errors and saying "you just dont get it bro" i hope you go deaf, blind, mute and quadraplegic so your a chicken nugget in both mind and body

>>22648731
You try so hard and only continue to reveal the base understanding. I'm sorry you have such a reactionary and idiotic personality, I wish you had been raised better so as to at least hide your ignorance instead of reveling it like a town fool.

>>22649302
Based.

>>22649302
filtered

Jude the Obscure

>>22649302
beyond based

>>22649360
100 % ad hom. to answer your question - i "keep trying" to make sure snobby knowitalls like you get reminded of their lack of actual arguments. have a good one!

>>22637814
number one answer
most well-known books I can at least understand being well-known but this one's an utter sack of shit

>>22649302
>implying this isn't the same opinion every roastie has of the work
If you can read Greek, it isn't Chinese whispers. I would be mad too if I was such a subhuman faggot that the greatest and most epochal works of poetry were inaccessibly boring to me.

>>22649203
My dad gave it to me for my birthday and really hyped it up. It's like As I Lay Dying but if the family constantly asked for government handouts. Is the point that they're idiots that are bad with money? None of the characters are likeable. The worst one is Rosasharn's deadbeat husband who abandons her when things don't look good

>>22649158
>>22650831
finished reading this the other day I thought it was pretty good however the ending is a bit shit. i really wanted something good to happen to the joad family but it was just constant misery porn the shorter non-narrative chapters in between the story were really good though and probably have some of the best prose in the entire book and the preacher is such a based character imo. it's been a long time since a book has gripped me like grapes of wrath did it had me invested almost instantly. rosacharn breast feeding that hobo at the endseemed like a comical depiction of the entire plight being portrayed in the book and the whole thing just seemed to end very suddenly with no closure. still a very good however

having a read a lot of mccarthy it was interesting seeing obvious influences on him in this book but grapes of wrath isn't nearly as good as Suttree for example

>>22637799
the sun also rises was shit, having read shit posted about it on here I now see that some important details went completely over my head, apparently one of the dudes i cant remember if its the jew or boxer or whatever the fuck got his dick blown off in the war and this effects the whole social dynamic with the women and shit but I still dont fucking care. this entire book was just people sitting around fucking cafes chatting, even them going to the bullfights wasn't exciting at all. the best bit about this book is when two of the guys meet this english bloke and fish with him, it was reminiscent of big two hearted river which along with the rest of In Our Time is better than this novel. im gonna read a farewell to arms next, hopefully hemingway can win me over with his novels because I love his short stories.

>>22651662
The guy who got his dick blown off was the main character. The jew was the boxer. The book demands close reading; but I agree with you that it’s tedious garbage and that the fishing scene is the best.
>im gonna read a farewell to arms next, hopefully hemingway can win me over with his novels because I love his short stories
Read The Short and Happy Life of Francis Macomber. It’s like 30 pages and the best thing Heming-ACK ever wrote.

>>22651636
I thought the writing itself was very good but I hated the story and the characters and message. Its point seemed to be that the banks and government screwed these people over and they had no power over their situation, but they made bad choices at every turn. They shouldn't have taken a loan on the land if they couldn't pay it back. They shouldn't let their pride prevent them from taking jobs from the new owners of the land. They shouldn't drop everything and move cross country thinking it's going to be so easy to find a job just because of a flyer. I thought it was going somewhere and then that retarded ending made me angry I wasted my time on this book.

If you haven't read As I Lay Dying I highly recommend it. A poor family in a hard situation but they refuse any handouts. The message and ending are much better

>>22639142
To commence this rejoinder, that is to say, the reply to the thread created by OP, yet containing "You" herein, I must - and I do not use this specific wording lightly - commend you, the creator of the comment, for making use of such wonderful (more accurately - of great literary beauty) prose.

Jane Eyre is 100 boring pages, then 200 good pages, then 100 boring pages. The structuring is the worst of any novel I've read. Shitty thrillers are better planned out. You could start with her arriving at the house and lose nothing.
>>22651842
Henry James doesn't actually write like this. But he's fucking great and anyone who says otherwise is wrong and stupid

>>22650831
They don't ask for government handouts though. They travel across the country looking for work and taking literally any and every work opportunity they can. There is a very small section when they are in a government camp, but they still have to work, but this is made difficult because private business were union busting robber barons. The point of the book is that economic conditions can be manipulated to take a family who has owned a farm for generations and force them into debt, and finally to sell their farm to a mega farm. In short, "Bigger farms, less owners". The end result of this is a workforce of penniless desperate men willing to work for next to nothing just to try and feed their kids. This is explored through a very human lens of the struggling Joad family and the day-to-day misery this brings on those subjected to it. It takes place in the great depression, did you expect the characters to be happy-go-lucky comedians? May I ask, have you ever experienced hardship? Have you ever been unable to find a job even when you would take anything? Have you ever been worried that you might not be able to pay your bills? The novel is portraying these things that really happened to huge numbers of people through no fault of their own, and your only comment is "the characters aren't likeable"?

>>22651824
Uhh, how old are you? You think they just decided not to get a job close to home? You think they went into debt on a whim because they didn't think about it? You seem not to appreciate what it was like during the great depression.

Anything by Jane Austen. Why I go so far as to say that any library is a good library that does not contain a volume by Jane Austen. Even if it contains no other book.

>>22642569
Was at a party last night talking books and a buddy of mine recommended it to me, seeing this mere hours later makes me ponder the matrix a little to hard; but i digress, what is this book about and why is it so shit if you've got the time

>>22642927
Prince
>>22642935
Fuck you lol ween is based

>>22649039
>Okay, and?

>>22653842
It's a Hesse novel for the mentally retarded, vague spiritualist psychobabble repeated ad nauseam with all the insight of a motivational poster hung by a dowdy HR rep whose pussy hasn't fucked in a double digit number of years. It's mass produced slop designed for the Oprah Winfrey cadre, easy in and easy out, vague platitudes and psuedoresolution to paper over a pointless existence. It is a novel that asks how many words you can write under the concept of "follow ur dreams" and how little you can make those words mean. It is a work designed to appeal to people who want the validation of having a "spiritual system" but don't want to hold themselves to any standards or morals, don't want to have to wrangle with their fears and doubts, and don't want anything in the least challenging. It is excrement and every second I spent reading that shit is a lifelong and undying regret. It makes me want to vomit.

>>22637799
The Timaeus

“Fire is actually an isosceles triangle in another universe”

>>22653876
Prove him wrong

>>22638054
>Wuthering Heights
my nigga

>>22638892
Mann could write about literally anything and I'd eat that shit up, delicious scrumptious prose

>>22653868
Cheers cobber, from your vitriolic response i think I'll be steering clear, hopefully my mates forgotten about the rec by the next time I see him

>>22638054
>Wuthering Weights was AWFUL.
Holy filtered, Batman. Literally one of the only books written by a woman that this board and actually likes and you still got filtered. Seek help.

>>22637802
Same. English version, though I feel like it might be a translation issue.

>>22637799
Anna Karenina.
I dislike gatsby more but at least people say it's about American dream so I get why me, a non American, won't like it.
But Anna Karenina is very bad. I liked Twilight more.

>>22639401
I am a Buddhist living in an Eastern country. Siddhartha is not even close to what Buddha was and what he taught.

>>22641069
I never understood that about Catch 22. I didn't feel like powering through, I just enjoyed it immensely. But this sort of writing is only tolerable because there is humour, and I don't really get the "trying to be funny" argument. It's a humour book, of course it is trying to be funny.

Are some people just averse to humour?

>>22638149
Sense and Sensibility was one of the worst books I've ever read.

>>22649049
Let me guess, you read a translation.
100 years has to be read in spanish and by someone coming from a hispanic perspective.
Anglo/germanics will never get it, specially if translated.

>>22639944
The only bit I found jarringly long-winded was the backstory for that Italian outlaw because he ended up barely playing a relatively minor role. Even that was kinda comfy though. The rest felt like a perfectly paced slow burn, but I listened to the audiobook while commuting, so maybe it just suited that format better.

>>22642058
For Whom The Bell Tolls is my least favourite of his desu. Lots to appreciate, but overall just too... Hollywood.

>>22638018
Get off this board

>>22637799
The Brothers Karamazov and Crime & Punishment, Nabokov was right about this soap opera hack.

>>22653868
You sound like a fag

>>22637799
1984 I have not even read another classic that even comes close to being that fucking bad

>>22651993
im not >>22651824 but the joad family could've literally got the three dollars a day jobs as tractor drivers and been infinitely better off than if they moved to california, I think the reason they didn't stay though wasn't purely down to pride but because there exists a spirtual connection with the land, the labour and the inhabitants which is vanquished by the onset of industrial farming techniques, steinbeck writes about this in one of the non-narrative chapters

>>22639920
No

she has a filipino boyfriend
think she's read noli me tangere

Plato’s dialogues.

>>22642898
I remember liking a good deal of its prose while other stuff made my eyes glaze over.

I think it definitely has worth in hiw vividly it can expresses human conditions, often using the description of the world itself to parallel an internal condition, but there is also plooding bits too.

I guess it was created for a period where people had longer attention spans for those sorts of moments of delayed gratification.

>>22656508
Most 19th century fiction is like that. You never read a book from that era and find it too concise. The three volume novel and its consequences
Similar to modern TV shows where a 90 minute idea gets dragged out to ten hour long episodes, because the medium requires it

>>22642898
I like the Scarlet Letter a lot, but I think the House of Seven Gables is much better and kind of proto-modernist.
>>22643223
His short stories are definitely great. The Wives of the Dead is especially good.

I got brutally filtered by The Sound and the Fury, but sunk cost fallacy made me power through to the end despite hating every minute of it. I immediately dropped Gravity's Rainbow too. Nowadays, I rarely ever read fiction anymore.

>>22638149
Spot on. I had to read a lot of Austen at uni and all of her books are basically the same with names and settings being swapped.

CAPTCHA: H20WNJ

>>22654300
This board has generally shitty taste. Look how much Dosto is fellated here and he is the most melodramatic, trite, tasteless hack to ever rise to popularity.

>>22654550
>Has no inherent value which transcends language and culture
If you require a geographically or culturally locked perspective to appreciate a work, its probably shit. Real works of art are timeless and space is irrelevant to them. You're just coping because it can't hold a candle to world literature.

>>22656137
This is partially true, it's quite the thing to ask a man who used to own the land to work it for another owner. However, tractors, like any machinery, exist to reduce labor, so the idea that, as a general rule, those who worked the land could all just get jobs as tractor drivers does not hold water. This seems like a concept some people cannot grasp. Yes, SOME people can simply find a new job and be fine, but taken AS A WHOLE, when there is a shift in the labor market this extreme, some people will be screwed, and it won't matter what they do, there simply is no longer a space for them because of shifting market/labor conditions.

>>22637799
Fahrenheit 451

>>22637799
Justine. Only book I've burned.

>>22640991
>catch 22
How can you be this filtered? I read that book when I was 18 and I still got it

>>22641069
You gotta keep reading it. The book isn't written chronologically but it gets wrapped up in a very impactful way, imo. The last few chapters of that book are pretty damn good

The Phantom of the Opera and The Mystery of the Yellow Room, if those even count as literary classics.

>>22654535
Not everything is funny to everyone. I couldn’t stand it. Writing funny is hard.

I found Stand on Zanzibar immensely boring.

>>22641091
It's a fundamentally Christian novel that was created with the purpose of detailing the insanity of the growing moral relativity, atheism, and utilitarian sentiments in Russia. It's a fine novel if a bit too long for it's own good.

>>22637799
To Kill a Mockingbird

>>22637799
Stranger by Camus. Loved his Plague though.

>>22638149

The "trivial" you refer to is 99% of our existence.

>>22658887
Dosto is essentially sadomasochistic, he loves dwelling on characters who revel in how depraved they are, but who also prostrate themselves in the just punishment or humiliation of their depravity. Again, sensitive murderers and soulful prostitutes imply the exact situation he adored, all the violence and sexual intrigue he desired so much, but with the approval of his super ego since they ritualistically degrade themselves in a kind of spiritual fetishistic pleasure in confessing, being punished, and then being "redeemed". It's lurid and partakes of a sick kind of gratification in self flagellation.

>>22659308
I think it's moreso that his characters are misguided. like in Raskolnikov's case he genuinely believed in the idea that if he was killing a person who was horrible it would be beneficial. He rationalized the killing, believing that only good could come of it. He needed to prove that he was a great man, one capable of passing judgement. Obviously he was wrong and he torments himself. It's clearly very Christian, God is the only judge, self flagellation, repentance, sin, forgiveness. It's not Dostoyevsky being some sadist, it's him showing people at the time the pitfalls of the philosophical literature coming out at the time. It's no coincidence that Ras is a student who wrote a paper that essentially gave him the moral authority to decide that killing a person is a good thing. Reading Dostoyevsky and coming away with the take that he's some sadomasochist is very shallow and shows that you really don't understand the historical context surrounding his literature or the beliefs of Christians at the time.

>>22643058
>The Gaelic Wars

>>22637799
Can’t remember the name, it was one of those books we had to read before school started and being a good little A student I forced myself to read it over summer. All I remember is the guy won a Pulitzer for it and it was about a boy going to boarding school or something and I fucking hated trying to get through it. I want to say the title was a quiet something or maybe had peace in the title.

>>22659507
Just remembered the name.

>>22647329
Yeah, as a matter of fact, I did.
Much better than Camus' lame "masterpiece of Absurdist literature"
>>22637814
Catcher in the Rye is awesome, read it in high school, was what turned me on to literature. I think a lot of you guys just don't understand the point of it. Or have this expectation that a novel has to be this profound extentialist commentary.
It's just a simple coming of age story written from the perspective of a melancholic angsty teenager who's lamenting the death of innocence and childlike wonder that comes with growing older. It'll makes sense when you have kids.

>>22660551
>To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Catcher in the Rye. The themes are extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of Cynic Philosophy most of the social commentary will go right over a typical viewer's head. There's also Holden's depressive outlook, which is deftly woven into his characterisation- his personal philosophy draws heavily from Romantic era literature, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of these themes, to realise that they're not just topical- they say something deep about LIFE. As a consequence people who dislike Catcher in the Rye truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn't appreciate, for instance, the meaning in Holden's existential realization "I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all," which itself is a cryptic reference to Dostoevsky's Russian epic The Idiot. I'm smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Salinger's genius wit unfolds itself on the pages before their eyes. What fools.. how I pity them.

>>22637799
all of Mark Twain. I hate all of his books I have read. and its not just bad memories from being in highschool, reread them and still hate them. he probably used a pseudonym because he was embarrassed of his writing.

>>22637799
I do not like Confucius or Plato. I like other Chinese and Greek writers from their times but they just rub me the wrong way. I’m going to give the former another shot at some point though

>>22656903
>This board has generally shitty taste
True, but Wuthering Heights is still good. Except for the parts when Joseph is speaking.

to kill a mocking bird
SO fucking broing

>>22637799
Not necessarily a classic but Beyond Freedom & Dignity. What a miserable pedant Skinner was.

This thread reminded me why I stopped posting on c/lit/

>>22661876
good, you sound like a pleb

>>22660551
Maybe you'd enjoy a board about movies and TV better?

>>22638103
I've forced my dad to read it to "broaden his perspective on this" and he absolutely hates it. I don't even know what it's about, I just wanted to mess with him. He's been reading it for about 3 months and hasn't even read half of it. Every time I visit him and ask him about it he just sighs and rubs his forehead.

>>22654535
It was juvenile slapstick like humor. The Choirboys did it better. Only funny part was where the Indian (feather, not dot) said something like, "Racism is a terrible thing when an Indian such as myself gets treated like a filthy nigger or a spic or a wop or a kike."

>>22637799
No Longer Human

>>22638054
>Crime and Punishment was abysmal
Tell me how I know that you are a morally-dead, consciousness-lacking, emotionless NPC without you telling me so. I can understand why you would find the inner struggles and guilt-ridden pangs of a man who committed murder boring.

Go back to Harry Potter if you want action and drama, fag.

>>22651993
"Oh no i farmed cotton for 50 years without rotating crops, and now the land is completely destroyed and infertile, and now it hasn't grown enough to sustain my family for ten years in a row. I guess I'll just wait around and wait for it to get better. Guess i need a loan, i will definitely be able to pay it off when my cotton grows next year"

"Those capitalist banker pigs have kicked me off my sacred land my grandaddy stole from the indians!!!! Guess I'll go to cali so i can buy me a little white house with the money i get from pickin oranges. Yup that will be easy money"

>>22637802
it was great

>>22659480
The trouble is that his paper, which praises Napoleon as such a "great man", belies the real facts of the case. A true psychopath has no compunction to kill and slaughter for his aims, and such a man actually does leave his mark on history. Had Rasky lacked a conscience, he would have killed and not cared at all. In fact, had he gotten away with it, killed the innocent other woman, and been tracked down by the police, it probably would have painted a better "cautionary tale" than just falling into a feverish stupor for 300+ pages and confessing. Maybe if you are such a nincompoop that you can't foresee your own state of mind of guilt for committing such an act, this literature might be for you, but some of us don't need a protracted melodramatic wankfest of misery and self abasement to realize that if you kill innocent people, you will feel bad!

>>22662115
>"I'm a big strong man and can kill!"
>"Oh no, I feel guilty and am sad"
So deep. Wow. So profound I would never have known what a conscience was unless I read hundreds and hundreds of pages of a fevered simpering incel whining.

>>22662202
>"No, you don't understand, the bankers are innocent and people should be forced to pick fruit for starvation wages"
Aren't you an edgy boi?

>>22664299
The banks allowed them a second chance to stay on their land. No one is (physically) forced to take out a loan. They signed a contractual agreement saying if they can't pay it back, the land would be taken. Without the bank's loan they would've been forced to move long before. What is your solution here? The bank just says "oh you can't pay it back? that's ok bro"? The bank even offered them jobs on the land and they refused. The man at the beginning who took the job was very happy and able to take care of his wife and child. The Joads just thought they were too good to take a job from them, but not too good to take money from them apparently. The farmers maybe should've taken better care of the land instead of draining it of its nutrients year after year if it's so sacred to them?

Anyone who drops everything to move cross country for a supposed job on a flyer is not very bright. When there are thousands of people fighting for a job as easy as picking fruit the employers can afford to lower the wages. That's how supply and demand works. If it was reversed and there were few workers and a lot of positions, employers would raise the salary to become more competitive. Having a mandated minimum wage will just cause employers to pay as low as they can instead of offering a competitive wage. It also messes with inflation and cost of living.

If a group of people want to live on a commune like that one camp they stayed at where everyone took care of each other and they each had jobs, that's great. The police shouldn't have harassed them and tried to ruin it. But to say this should be done on a mass scale with the gov funding it is ridiculous and unrealistic.

Anyway my point here is that As I Lay Dying is a much better story with more likeable characters. Also an equally ridiculous ending that is actually enjoyable instead of disturbing and frustrating

>>22649302
Go read the pope translation if you can't stomach dry prose.
>>22664295
Perhaps crime and punishment was a cautionary tale against psy-opping yourself into going the gulag for 30 years and marrying a prostitute after getting out.
>>22637799
Chronicle of an announced death by marquez. Fucking boring.

>>22664295
>Hundreds and hundreds of pages
It's not even that long of a book