/lit/ - Literature

>>23135200
Start with the head, then work your way up to the shaft.

>>23135204
Is that what it means to "Start with the Greeks"?

>>23135200
Read what you’re interested in.
For example, if you like westerns and sci-fi/fantasy, then from this you’ll read Blood Meridian and Book of the New Sun.

>>23135200
No. Start with literature from regions and cultures you have more context with. If you are Western, you need to begin a Start with the Greeks path, but don't only read those.
>read classics from your region from the past century or so
>read ancient texts foundational to your culture
>branch out occasionally with other work, follow the trail if it inspires you
It's that simple. For example, if you're Irish, prioritize Joyce. If you're American, definitely read Moby-Dick. If you are a faggot, read Pynchon.

>>23135200
You will be royally fucked if you start with Pynchon, Joyce and Wallace. In all seriousness you need practice before reading those.

>>23135365
I'm not American. I'm Minnesotan.

>>23135441
Even McCarthy would be too much imo

I wish I could say that the answer is right there but it becomes more rewarding the more prior reading you have done. BotNS will have to do until then.

>>23135200
Starting with Moby Dick would be great

>>23135200
These aren't starter kits but essentials. I suggest you shouldn't start with these especially the Meme Trilogy itself. What I would recommend is to Start with the Greeks instead.

No, absolutely not. I'd suggest you start with something like Charles Dickens to get a feel for good literature. You'll want to read something that interests you, though, especially as you're learning to better appreciate literature. So, by all means, if you like genre fiction then read Tolkien or Philip K Dick or something instead to begin with. The "Start with the Greeks" meme is also not entirely a meme and I absolutely do recommend you read the Greeks, as they are foundational to not only the "Western Canon" but Western thought in general. You don't need to literally START with the Greeks, though. Get a feel for literature first, read a few things that interest you, then maybe you will want to take things more seriously and apply yourself to reading the Greeks, Shakespeare, and reading literature that will prepare you to read stuff by Joyce and Pynchon. And don't forget poetry! Picked up a cheap used copy of Norton's Anthology of English Poetry and just start reading names you recognize.

>>23135200
>>23135606
A long time ago there was a starter kit which had short stories and novellas on it for newbies. It had stuff such as The Calling of Lot 49, Ficciones and the Apology of Plato. Start with those.

>>23135200
You start with something short and easy to follow, then you work your way up to something that is long, but still easy to follow. Then when you think you like reading, you can read those and realise that you don't.

>>23135200
Absolutely not

>>23135200
That pic should be renamed to The /Shit/ Starter Kit.

>>23135200

This list isn't bad
>>23119217

I can distinctly remember going from Stephen King fanboy to getting into "literate fiction" from Blood Meridian. Cormac is a fantastic distillation of the American tradition (mainly Melville + Faulkner, though imo much more the latter) and I think his stories are pretty straight forward. I'd start there.

After that, here are some of the other books I'd highly recommend, going from shortest to longest.

>The Little Prince
>Old Man and the Sea
>Ficciones
>At Swim-Two-Birds
>Slaughterhouse-5
>Giovanni's Room
>100 Years of Solitude
>Moby-Dick
>Don Quixote
>The Brothers Karamazov

And look, I was at a point where I got tired of "introductory texts", I wanted to read what interested me, regardless if it was "above my level", cause the truth is, there is only so much preparation you can do for a book, and often times, there isn't that much damn time to do so anyway. The most you can do is to just read, read, read; the more you do it, the easier it gets; simple as

Some bold choices for a newer reader (these tend to be much longer on average). I would say all the ones below tend to be substantially more dense and far longer in length

>Under the Volcano
>Hopscotch
>The Tunnel
>2666
>The Sot-Weed Factor (similar in style to Mason & Dixon)
>The Death of Virgil
>The Magic Mountain
>Fathers & Crows
>The Recognitions
>Ulysses (hardest one on the list)
>Gravity's Rainbow (second hardest)

All of the above mentioned works are some of my all-time favorites, and i would recommend reading at least three or five from the first list before heading into anything from the second (always use second hand sources if you don't understand something!)

Good luck

>>23135200
Half that categorically no. What sort of films do you go for? Start with the literary genre equivalents.

>>23135200
I follow a formula with reading. I go smart book, dumb book, classic and then repeat that order. My parameters for smart is an academic level non fiction book about philosophy, science, history or political theory. Dumb books encompass genre fiction such as heroic fantasy, Sci Fi, smut, horror and other books that I come across that pique my interest. I just follow the infographics I find here to get a list of classics and occasionally the foreword or afterword will give a really good recommendation. Variety keeps me interested in reading consistently and I haven't suffered from reading fatigue since I adopted this method.

>>23135665
When you say start with the greeks, do you mean stuff like the Iliad and the Odyssey or are you also including philosophy?

>>23135200
Two Pynchon books there is overkill for an starter pack. Replace one with something like Stoner, which is well loved here, and you're golden. You should know that most of these books can be hard for a first time reader though, but people telling you to start with easier books are retarded. If you start with something hard and you grind your way to the last page, then afterwards you will be able to read anything without any trouble. If instead you start with basic books, there's a chance you will always feel intimidated to tackle something like Ulysses.

I found a /lit/ starter kit list on Goodreads and it contains:

The Catcher in the Rye
1984
The Great Gatsby
American Psycho
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Fahrenheit 451
Invisible Man
Lolita
Brave New World
A Clockwork Orange
To Kill a Mockingbird
Catch-22
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Slaughterhouse-Five
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Of Mice and Men
Lord of the Flies
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Siddhartha

>>23135200
>>23136844
It is extremely poor as a starter list of nine books. EXTREMELY! A real starter kit of nine would look more like:

>I. The Holy Bible
>II. Republic; Plato
>III. Theogony & Works and Days; Hesiod
They are often paired in a single volume is why I've put them together.
>IV. Iliad; Homer
Lattimore, Lang, Pope, Fagles, Fitzgerald, Wilson (kek), and a few other translators I've forgotten. I read Fitzgerald.
>V. Hamlet; Shakespeare
>VI. Julius Caesar, King Lear, or Macbeth; Shakespeare (because you can't have only read one work of Shakespeare's it is simply barbaric)
If you're more intersted in tasting his comedy, A Midsummer Night's Dream is great and easy though it draws on Plutarch and Ovid a little.
>VII. One major work of philosophy from after Shakespeare
Hume, Kant, or Hegel basically--though there are others you may be able to argue, but not yet Nerdsche
>VIII. any one of the following: Chaucer, Milton, Blake, or Dante
>IX. One of the following: Swann's Way by Proust, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by Joyce, The Cherry Orchard by Chekov, or The Idiot by Dostoevsky

The reality is, one cannot get into literature with a simple list of nine. You cannot cover 3000 years in nine books in any way which might give you a good foundation.

>>23137321
As a more modern list it is solid, but it has zero foundation. Literally none. You can read a list like this and have read books, but the people who read those same books as you with a good foundation had an altogether more rich experience. The authors wrote it for them.

>>23135200
No, you should read what you enjoy reading. See what kind of movies you like watching the most and look for their literary equivalent.
The amount of teens who give up on reading just because they picked up Dostoevsky instead of Brandon Sanderson is unbelievable.

>>23135451
Self destructive stoicism and a pathological need to acknowledge anyone we make eye contact with however fleeting even if we did not actually make eye contact but it is possible the other person might have thought we did make eye contact so better play it say that everyone else mistakes for niceness but is just pathological and probably part of the self destructive stoicism as culture, possibly art form, absolutely way of life. We really don't fit in with the rest of the country.

Wisconsin is the only state that understands us and they are freaks.

Small talk in Minnesota is a competition, I think this is what really causes the disconnect with the rest of the country.

>>23135200
Moby Dick certainly

Absolute waste of time to read any of those without literary experience, start with more straightforward fiction and move your way up from it

>>23137204
>Homer
>the tragedies
>Hippocrates
>Herodotus and Thucydides
>Plato
>Aristotle

That’s all of them. Some will say presocratics but they are inconsequential.

>>23136844
>blood meridian
>introductory text
You have spent a little too much time here. Fragmented narrative is not the only reason why some writers or books may be inaccessible. I'd say Blood meridian is at least as much, if not more, inaccessible than Moby Dick, which shouldn't be an introductory text either.

>the little prince
>old man and the sea
>slaughterhouse 5
>giovanni's room
>100 years of solitude
>Don Quixote
These are all better as starting books.

Joyce is designed to be read in release order

>>23137627
>Joyce is designed
retard.

>>23137628
You will literally explode into a ball of flame if you try reading Ulysses before Dubliners.

Legititititely

>>23137630
I read Ulysses then FW then Portrait. I did not explode into a ball of flame. Never read Dubliners, not big on short stories, I did read The Dead, it was alright.

>>23137631
Yeah, I’m just being a doof. I have no idea what that first guy is prattling about. It’s far more important to read other canon works mentioned in Ulysses than to read other Joyce works.

>>23137620
>more inaccessible than Moby dick

lol no

>>23137628
Thanks

>>23137633
The other cannon works are not that important, at least not in the sense you are implying. I made a couple effort posts on Joyce in the FW thread yesterday or the day before where I explained it all and how Joyce is meant to be read. First post is a bit of a shitshow but still makes sense.
>>23127343
>>23131206

>>23135200
Definitely not. You probably wont understand these, much less appreciate them.

>>23137638
Lol yes. What exactly is inaccessible about Moby Dick? The prose is more normal and Ahab's soliloquies are less obtuse than Holden's.

>>23135200
No. You should start with bestsellers. Just investigate who are the most successful bestseller authors and try them out one by one.

>>23137651
It's long and bloated, BM is svelte and sexy

>>23137204
I would recommend you read Plato at the very least and maybe gain at least some familiarity with Aristotle. I also think you should read the preoscratics unlike the other guy. Even if your only interest is literature, it helps to read them because it gives you some idea of foundational western thought and it will help you see how that thought permeates throughout much of the "western canon." You can always read them at your pace, though. I don't suggest you halt all your reading just to get through the notoriously difficult works of Aristotle.
But if you really have no interest at all in philosophy, you should still read The Iliad, The Odyssey, the tragedies, Herodotus and Thucydides.

>>23138352
You should also read Hippo because he is referenced in Plato sometimes such as in Laws (the positioning of the perfect city is based on his treatise on winds and health) and in Timaeus (the semen system running through the head is from Hippo’s work).

>>23137351
nobody who wants to get into literature is going to start with the bible lmao. it's extremely important, as are all of these books, but this list reads as a desperate English major trying to convince others he didn't waste an entire education.

come back to any of these OP (especially levels VIII & IX) AFTER some of the other starter books in this thread (a good 5-8 i'd say), otherwise don't start with these, you'll be burned out before you even begin.

>>23137356
Now say that without huffing your own farts.

>>23138590
>the bible is important
nah

>>23137620
I say blood meridian because it's what i started with after being burned out from being a stephen king fanboy. I fell in love with it instantly, and I'd recommend it to anyone as a starting point to get into literature, as it was for mine.

>relatively short
>extremely memorable characters
>one of the best English prose writers that's also accessible
>action and violence to sustain engagement for the uninitiated

Just read. Don't overthink it. Don't start with the greeks. Don't follow guides. Start with whatever interests you.

>>23138611
It may have been for you but for 90% of the readers starting to get into literature, BM is definitely not what would be considered accessible prose. Not to mention how unprepared they will be for all the gore. BM isn't exactly a thrilling action book. In fact it is quite the opposite.

>>23138590
Of course they won't, and that is why there are so many pseuds, but they could and should. My list is what they should do, not what they will do. What they will probably do is never read it--much less cover to cover--and they will remain poser pseuds till the day they die.

As for the burn out nonsense, don't assume everyone is as mentally weak as you. I had most of the KJV read before I was ten years old and portions memorized. It's not difficult and its not boring.

>>23138600
Can't handle the truth, can you? It was an obvious truth, at that.

>>23138607
>t. foolish know-nothing who will never know anything; a mindless consoomer who has let thousands upon thousands of references to the Bible fly right over his head unawares
You will live and die in darkness.

>>23138590
Btw, I am a phys/maths major. I read for recreation and to know things. Stop projecting like an imbecile.

>>23138581
I'll get right on that when we rediscover some ancient scroll that contains one of his writings
What the fuck are you talking about?

>>23135200
Holy shit I plead you, don't start with these.

>>23135200
Retards in this thread. Doesn’t matter if a book is so-called difficult (gay), you will push yourself and ascend this board.

>>23139793
Most everyone I know who is really has a love of literature and has continued reading through their life is the sort who read a bunch of difficult big books way over their heads when they were in high school. I think diving into the deep end is almost a requirement if you want literature to be more than an affect or an escape; there needs to be a real challenge to feed that desire to understand and not just easy to jump through hoop held up for you.

>>23139828
I’ve often thought about this. When I first got into reading difficult books appealed to me. I still enjoy a difficult book every once in a while but I’ve moved past that stage. I suppose I was a pseud

>>23139837
>I suppose I was a pseud
Still are. You have to push your boundaries if you ever want to move beyond them. Most of the writers who write big difficult books are at least partially attempting to recapture that feeling of what it was like reading when everything was new and nothing made sense but there was the experience and glimpses that there was a sense even if you could not see it. The attempt to recreate those childhood experiences and not just vicariously relive them through nostalgia.

It is that childhood love of literature transformed by the realization that the feelings and experiences of that childhood love can still be had. Those difficult novels reduce the reader to being young and naive no matter their age and experiences.

>>23135451
MN native, but I could never move back there to live permanently. I've seen too many friends and family members back home drink the hyper liberal Kool aid and start down the slippery slope.
Must be something in the water

>>23135200
almost seems like a joke list designed to filter out less dedicated readers. the brother's karamozov especially, because crime and punishment tells a similar story but is shorter and more exciting, making it the better choice for someone who doesn't already love reading. all of those books are fun throughout but they can also be punishing at times and they are all pretty long. here's my idea of a beginner's list.
>to have and have not: ernest hemmingway
>white fang: jack london
>death comes for the archbishop: willa cather
>catch 22: joseph heller
>rime of the ancient mariner
fun stuff that isn't too weighty.

>>23135200
almost seems like a joke list designed to filter out less dedicated readers. the brother's karamozov especially, because crime and punishment tells a similar story but is shorter and more exciting, making it the better choice for someone who doesn't already love reading. all of those books are fun throughout but they can also be punishing at times and they are all pretty long. here's my idea of a beginner's list.
>to have and have not: ernest hemmingway
>white fang: jack london
>death comes for the archbishop: willa cather
>catch 22: joseph heller
>rime of the ancient mariner: samuel taylor coleridge
fun stuff that isn't too weighty.

>>23137321
Reads like a list of recommendations from a very self serious 17 year old.

>>23140852
>self serious teenager reading Coleridge
Sir, trad has been a verifiable thing for some time now.

>>23139837
I find reading big books makes it easier to kinda fill in the gaps left by lesser authors and that injects a bit more of your own personality to reading.

>>23135200
never have i seen a more tryhard image

>>23141920
I find big complex books to be like an intense work out for your brain. The first couple years of trying to read seriously is really about maximizing your competency at reading comprehension. When I return to a more normal difficulty book after reading something really difficult, it is easier to read closely. Also. I think difficulty and quality have little to do with each other after a certain point. I think there is a minimum difficulty for something to be a real classic. Past that point, though, just like what you like.

>>23139828
I don't believe that you should wait until you're "ready" to read every so-called "difficult" classic, but it's absurd to tell someone to go ahead and start reading with something like Ulysses if they've never read much before. I read things like Moby Dick and Kafka when I was younger and before I was "ready" and I still came out with some appreciation of them, but I'd have absolutely hated a book like Ulysses or Gravity's Rainbow and I wouldn't have even begun to understand Nietzsche.

Honestly if you are a completely new reader don't even start with Greeks, go for something like Stephen King. Plato will really scramble your brain if it's the first book you plan to read. Better find some page turner to start with so you can see if you actually enjoy reading or not.

>>23135200
The Stranger

more like the male virgin starter kit haha!

No. Start here

>>23135200
if you truly don't read anything currently, start with easy stuff to get you in the habit. I recommend picrel, it's comfy fantasy and made reading a part of my daily routine which is what's important

>>23142446
Ulysses was my first real work of literature, before it I had not read anything denser than Paulsen. Literally the book that created my love of literature, the jumping between stream of consciousness and third person narration and all the allusions to a world I knew nothing about (literary world) made me want more. Ulysses was so alien and different from anything I had ever known before and I wanted know what else there was. I would have been 12 or 13 when I first read it, just a random book I pulled off my older sister's shelf probably because she had spent so many months reading it and I wanted to know what it was that kept her so involved for all that time.

>>23144322
Well, not everyone will have this experience, and most people are immediately dismissive of works like that prior to learning to appreciate them. I certainly was like that myself. So, it's safer not to start with books like that and start with something simpler.

>>23142723
This.

>>23137321
half of these are taught in high school

>>23144729
No one reads assigned material in high school. A 16 year old can’t properly understand most books. There are 2 components: book and reader. Book stays the same but a lot is dependent on the reader, what they understand, their experiences in life, all that pizzazz. Everyone should reread books they read in high school once you’re older. A book read as a teenager doesn’t count

>>23144655
Now you are just dancing around, ignoring what I have said and putting words in my mouth. Everyone can have the experience that I did, you just start with what interests you, as I did, instead of following the advice of some random nobody on the internet because there is no proper way when it comes to literature what kills literature for most people is reading things other than what interests them. If reading Ulysses is what interests you it is what you should read, meet the challenge instead of reading a bunch of books you don't care about because someone told you that it is too difficult for you.

Is the book of new sun actually good? I don't usually read fantasy but if its on /lit/s top book chart I might check it out

You're supposed to read books in chronological order. Google what was the first book

>>23135200
Start with "The Unbearable Lightness of Being". And then get depressed because such books don't exist beyond that single Kundera book.

>>23144771
I don't agree. If people only begin to read by reading what immediately interests them, they're less likely to become serious readers. Many young people only read genre fiction/YA novels and consider themselves well-read despite never venturing outside of their comfort zone or reading the classics, and many begin by reading novels like Ulysses because they sound interesting to them but end up hating them and hating literature in general simply because they don't understand the book and aren't capable of appreciating it. I'm not saying you shouldn't read what interests you, and I'd hope if someone is getting into literature they'll have some interest in the things they read, but it's absurd to tell someone to start with Ulysses just because it interests them, as you risk immediately turning them off from good literature. It makes much more sense to help them find something else they're interested in that is less complex and have them start there.

>>23135200
um im also new and im reading crime and punishment right now, i like it so far, any suggestions on what i should read next?

>>23137321
I read all these in high-school aside from Fear and Loathing you should have read all of these

>>23138713
Is the gore really that bad? There's only one or two things that really stick out in my mind as being extreme/disturbing the rest is just standard violence most of us have been exposed to our whole lives. Especially if they're spending there time on this website

>>23146059
If you like Russian literature maybe give War and Peace a try or Anna Karenina. War and Peace is a bit more of a slog than Crime and Punishment but Anna Karenina isn't for everyone either.In my mind they're both worth reading.

>>23146496
It is not, there are dead babies and that kind of stuff but nothing is described in detail, everything is just mentioned or sometimes only implied

>>23137586
So I can just skip the Iliad and go straight the Odessey anon ?
I read about both, Iliad looks like some boring ancient drama. Meanwhile Odessey seems like a real EPIC shit

>>23147515
Odyssey is far more engaging but you should read both.

>>23146517
Yea the excerpt where one of the delwares swings the babies by the heal against a rock and bashes their skulls in is a little fucked up but the rest of violence is manageable its just the violence against children that bothers me

>>23146517
>>23147871
one of the Delawares emerged from the smoke with a naked infant dangling in each hand and squatted at a ring of midden stones and swung them by the heels each in turn and bashed their heads against the stones so that the brains burst forth through the fontanel in a bloody spew.

>>23137586
>ulysses is the first modernist novel
isn't that madame bovary?

>>23147515
You can start with whichever, and eventually if you make up your mind read the other one

>>23138352
Why Herodotus and Thucydides? They just cover wars. Or does it also cover important philosophy? And can you recommend a good introduction to Plato and Aristotle? I don't know anything about philosophy and it always looked intimidating to me but I know it's important for reading the Western Canon.