/lit/ - Literature

stop being concerned with the parts, anon, lest ye be overcome by Zeno's preoccuations

omg en media res and using "fine morning" on a BAD morning
this kafka guy DOES make joyce and proust look like worms, comparatively

It was a pleasure to burn. - Fahrenheit 451.
I am especially endeared by the succinctness. It might not be my favorite but it is one I have memorized, mostly on accident.

There isn't even a "fine" in the german original text

>>3337262
>not reading Kafka in German
>not knowing all magnificence which lies in prose is lost in translation
>still going on about amazing prose, although (horribly) translated
>OP confirmed for parroting things he heard, said by others
>probably doesn't even know he is just repeating sounds like an ape

>>3337266
I don't think OP is concerned in an unsettling sense nor preoccupied.

>>3338109
l2translate

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.

>try to talk about literature on /lit/
>shittin pleb get out of here

It's a short story, but whatever.

>The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door.

>>3340086
"(...) wurde er eines morgens verhaftet."

Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo

The sky above the television was the color of desert, and the gunslinger followed.

Chapter 1

>>3340104
So where does the "fine" come from?

Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I can't be sure.

I'm not a fan of the novel, I think the whole thing could be cut down to that opening and retain the same level of meaning. So it is an amazing opening despite me not loving the book.

Not the best by a long shot, but a personal favorite of mine:

"There are some strange summer mornings in the country, when he who is but a sojourner from the city shall early walk forth into the fields, and be wonder-smitten with the trance-like aspect of the green and golden world." —Melvile, Pierre; or The Ambiguities

>>3340120
this "and a very good time it was" always touches me when I remember it.

>>3340090
I've read this sentence about a million times without going further than the first page.

"It began as a mistake." - Bukowski, Post Office

inb4 girls getting mad

Rockets have flown their arks.

We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like "I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive...." And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming "Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?"

Then it was quiet again. My attorney had taken his shirt off and was pouring beer on his chest, to facilitate the tanning process. "What the hell are you yelling about?" he muttered, staring up at the sun with his eyes closed and covered with wraparound Spanish sunglasses. "Never mind," I said. "It's your turn to drive." I hit the brakes and aimed the Great Red Shark toward the shoulder of the highway. No point mentioning those bats, I thought. The poor bastard will see them soon enough.

>>3341878
"We were somewhere around Bavaria on the edge of the Hofbrauhaus when the philosophy began to take hold. I remember saying something like "I feel a bit amoral; maybe you should drive...." And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like Christians, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Munich. And a voice was screaming "Holy Jesus! What is this goddamn slave morality?"

Then it was quiet again. Wagner had taken his shirt off and was pouring beer on his chest, to facilitate the tanning process. "What the hell are you yelling about?" he muttered, staring up at the sun with his eyes closed and covered with wraparound Spanish sunglasses. "Never mind," I said. "It's your turn to drive." I hit the brakes and aimed the existentmobile toward the shoulder of the highway. No point mentioning those Christians, I thought. The poor bastard will see them soon enough.""

-Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra

>>3340090
>>3341854
I think he intentionally wrote a bland and ordinary opening line, just because it doesn't always have to 'immediately pull you into the novel' or 'make the reader wonder and ask questions'. It's rather nice he did, since it was becoming sort of a chore for writers to think of a witty opening line or else not write a good novel. Only few others actually did it well, Kafka was one of them.

A screaming comes across the sjy.

>>3337262
>The Trial
I recently found a translation which started with the line "Someone must have been telling lies about Joesph K...." For some reason it just doesn't have quite the ring as "traduced," not to mention it might be a more liberal translation.

>Call me Ishmael

Because I know a great novel is happening.

>>3341988

Pynchon. I once tried to read it, stopped around page 200. Was too tired, couldn't focus, no clue what I was reading. Considering trying again, what sayest thou?

>>3341824

Wrote my thesis on Moby Dick. Fucking love Melville.

>>3337416
This.
I found the book mediocre but i can not forgot that line.

When the phone rang I was in the kitchen, boiling a potful of spaghetti and whistling along with an FM broadcast of the overture to Rossini's "The Thieving Magpie", which has to be the perfect music for cooking pasta.

>>3342013

No, you're wrong: that came from a parody of 'Gravity's Rainbow'.

Bet you don't know the title.

>>3343572

How did I know who this was without ever having read his stuff?

>>3343593
because of that chart

"Der Tag war vergangen, wie eben die Tage so vergehen; ich hatte ihn herumgebracht, hatte ihn sanft umgebracht,"

The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed

all other opening lines are shit

What the fuck is traduced? My copy says slandered, though I think been telling lies about sounds better.

>>3337262
I always thought the 'fine morning' referred to the weather being picturesque. And anyway, i just find that opening simple and uncouth.

One i liked, as has alrrady been mentioned, was 'A screaming comes across the sky.' Followed by 'it has happened before, but there is nothing to compare ut to now.'
I love the infinitive 'screaming' supplanting 'scream' because it makes it a continuous action, and therefore gives it a greater sense of immediacy. The sentence establishes an unorthodox style and the vague menace that is immanent in the novel. It's mysterious, succinct, and pitch-perfect in setting tone. Plus it just sounds badass

>>3340070
>thinks he is 2intellectual because he reads Kafka in German.

whoa bro, are u like smart???

OP here. This thread derailed marvelously for a time. I don't speak German and thus have not read the original text of The Trial. The only translation I've read has been the one I posted about, and while I'm aware that it may not be true to the original text, I still love this particular translation.

However, can one fault /lit/ for its own insecure nature? I still love you guys.

“I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me; had they duly considered how much depended upon what they were then doing; that not only the production of a rational Being was concerned in it, but that possibly the happy formation and temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his mind;--and, for aught they knew to the contrary, even the fortunes of his whole house might take their turn from the humours and dispositions which were then uppermost: Had they duly weighed and considered all this, and proceeded accordingly, I am verily persuaded I should have made a quite different figure in the world, from that, in which the reader is likely to see me.”

Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting.

>>3341785

It's the first time I'm reading that in English. It feels like it's shockingly distant from the original but I can't pinpoint why.

>Aujourd'hui, maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas.

Although I can't suggest another, better, translation. Am I the only one who feels there's so much lost in that translation? Maybe it's the familiarity with the original.

As for the OP, I'm one of those monsters who picks Lolita's opening to answer this question.

>>3343897
Thank you for not actually posting it. But there'll be some idiot who's not above doing it. It's just trite as fuck but then what isnt on /lit/

>>3341915
I don't think it's bland at all, I actually quite like it.

It's just that I haven't read any Joyce before and didn't particularly feel like reading Ulysses yet.

>>3343897
>not reading Lolita in the original Russian

/lit/ sure is full of plebs today

>>3343958
wut

>>3343961
old /lit/ gag

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.

"The act of love is of no importance, since it can be performed indefinitely."

>There are sores which slowly erode the mind in solitude like a kind of canker.

>In July my father went to take the waters and left me, with my mother and elder brother, a prey to the blinding white heat of the summer days. Dizzy with light, we dipped into that enormous book of holidays, its pages blazing with sunshine and scented with the sweet melting pulp of golden pears.

>>3340090
clearly superior opening line coming up:
>riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.

>>3343897
Lolita was never "originally written in Russian," darling.

>>3341785
>>3343897
There is a sense of genuine grief in the French that contradicts the dismissive and simple nature of the words.

The edition of the book I have reads
>My mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don't know.

>>3340070
how hard is it to learn german

>>3344144
I hear people often underestimate it because they're still under the impression that English is mostly a Germanic language.

I haven't learned it, but most people say it's harder than the Romance languages.

>It was love at first sight

I'm probably a bit biased, because it's my favorite novel of all time, but I still love that line

it's certainly easier than asian languages

"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."-Mark Twain, War and Peace

It was in those days when I wandered about hungry in Kristiania, that strange city which no one leaves before it has left its mark on him.

All happy families are like, each unhappy family is unhappy in their own way.

>>3344156

Oh you my human brothers, let me tell you how it happened

money... in a voice that rustled

"It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me." - Anthony Burgess, Earthly Powers

>>3344204
faggest opening line
faggest plot

>>3341886

"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone."


"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again"


two good ones

"traduced"? I don't remember that in The Trial. Is that even a word?

>>3345566
I just remembered I have the edition which says someone was "spreading lies" about Josef.
And I guess I learned a new word today.

>>3344144
German is so hard a language that most of the native speakers can't comprehend it's depths. German philosophy is notorious for alienating even the well read well educated German citizen. Try reading Hegel or Heidegger in German, and it will reveal to you a whole new level of pain

This is the saddest story I have ever heard.

>>3345574
That's nothing to do with the German language being hard but with Heidegger being a fucking moron and using words in confusing contexts. He uses very standard everyday words for his ridiculously overdescribed concepts.

It was the best of times
It was the worst of times

>>3345578
It has everything to do with German, at least the way it is written. You will encounter paragraphs the just go on and on, and with the most important verb at the ending, so once you have made it there, you have often forgotten what this verb actually refers back to, and you will have to re-read it once more.

>>3337262
>tfw right next to me is the "telling lies" translation

>>3345578
>Heidegger is a moron because he confuses me

>>3345613
>Heidegger isn't a moron because he confuses me

>>3345602
This is partly true, but it's mostly because Heidegger was a bad writer. Great philosopher, but not very good at getting his thoughts on paper.

>>3345613
Like I said, Heidegger was a shitty writer. This is pretty much generally acknowledged.

Snow-Balls have flown their Arcs, starr'd the Sides of Outbuildings, as of Cousins, carried Hats away into the brisk Wind off Delaware,-- the Sleds are brought in and their Runners carefully dried and greased, shoes deposited in the back Hall, a stocking'd-foot Descent made upon the great Kitchen, in a purposeful Dither since Morning, punctuated by the ringing Lids of Boilers and Stewing-Pots, fragrant with Pie-Spices, peel'd Fruits, Suet, heated Sugar,-- the Children, having all upon the Fly, among rhythmic slaps of Batter and Spoon, coax'd and stolen what they might, proceed, as upon each afternoon all this snowy December, to a comfortable Room at the rear of the House, years since given over to their carefree Assaults.

>I am a sick man. I am a wicked man. An unattractive man.
Notes from Underground

Not everybody knows how I killed old Phillip Mathers, smashing his jaw in with a spade; but first it is better to speak of my friendship with John Divney because it was he who first knocked old Mathers down by giving him a great blow in the neck with a special bicycle-pump which he manufactured himself out of a hollow iron bar.