/lit/ - Literature

Too much yank shit.

To Kill a Mockingbird really needs to be taken off.

Siddharta should be Steppenwolf, Stoner should be added.

>>4910770
>Over The Cuckoo Cukcoo's Nest

>>4910744
Can you change it on the wiki or do you need someone else to?

Add a v2 to it somewhere so we know it's a second version.

>>4910744
Swap Huckleberry Finn for Dubliners. No point polluting the list completely with American schoolchildren's books.

>>4910802
He made no meaningful improvements.

>>4910744
get 'Night' out of there... absolutely no literary value.

Daily reminder that To Kill a Mockingbird is outdated trash

>>4910744
Needs more variety. Having no Dostoyevsky is criminal. Give it some Joyce, Conrad and Marquez as well, and a Borges collection. Half of this stuff is just from school english class. Are you even trying?

>>4910744
List is way too Anglo

>>4910828
He just listed his favourite books he read at school. Move along /lit/, nothing to see here.

At least have one African author on there, christ,

Things Fall Apart is a good book and easy for someone new to literature.

Also Borges. Indulge the post-modern fetishists and the anglophobists

>>4910880
Things Fall Apart is perfect for boring someone new to literature, it's dull as shit right until the end.

>>4910892
What's wrong? Don't like yams?

>>4910744
Wrong font. Next please!

>>4910880
Why does there have to be at least one African author for a starter kit?

Why is Things Fall Apart the only book I ever see mentioned here when African writers are mentioned?

Why does it matter?

Keep in mind that its a starter kit, so yes, a lot of these are taught in high schools but the chart is for beginners. This isn't supposed to represent /lit/ as a whole. There's a 'patrician core' chart as well.
<Pic related.
>>4910770
>>4910754
>>4910822
>>4910815
Alright so I'll remove Mockingbird and replace it with Crime and Punishment. I'll also replace Night with Stoner. And Borges instead of Huckleberry Finn?
>>4910880
Invisible Man is there.

>>4910914
no keep huck finn. no way you should remove that. the only 10/10 books on the list as is are dorian grey, lolita, and huck finn

invisible man, 1984, catcher in the rye, slaughterhouse 5, the stranger, the sun also rises, the great gatsby, brave new world, catch 22, and the scarlet letter all belong also

the rest banish

>>4910919
The point is that there is no variety, half of the list is books that most people have already read even if they've never had any interest in literature. The Patrician one is mainly for trolling purposes.

>>4910880
>At least have one African author on there

>>4910925
Banish the Scarlet Letter too and we have a deal.

>>4910913
Because this list, as of now, perpetuates the idea that lliterature is a practice that belongs solely to Europe and America which is simply untrue.

Things Fall Apart is the book you always see mentioned with African writers because it is just as high school tier as all of the books on this list. It's piss easy to read, but at least its culturally enriching.

>>4910919
>the stranger
>atlas shrugged
>young werther
>faust part 1 and not 2
>swinburne
>kafka
>delillo
>tap lin
>MURAKAMI

none of these fit a "patrician" list at all. but you shouldn't make a patrician list it's dumb. also a patrician list would be >50% poetry

>>4910919
>Invisible Man
>African

This is a joke right?

>>4910919
>invisible man
Sorry, never mind, I thought he meant African American

>>4910919
>His idea of an African is an African-American

Could OP get anymore American-lit centric? Seriously, move along, he blew it. This thread is a brilliant example of why people who don't read many books shouldn't be in charge of telling people what to read.

>>4910935
just think of it as a starter kit to the traditional western canon... it's too hard to make a list otherwise

>>4910959
It's almost as if someone who doesn't know much literature isn't the best placed to make this image...

>>4910993
make the list then, faggot.

>>4910744

Every time I See this list, I'm reminded that the lot of you are either still in highschool, or just recently graduated from highschool. It's quite sad.

Removed Mockingbird and Night. Going to leave it like this.

Pleb signing out.

>>4910744
pic related is still the only /lit/ chart worth looking at

>>4911124
>swann's way and war and peace that high
confirmed for never having read them

>>4911129
you got me

I didn't make the chart, though. Everything on there I've read (0 gibberish, 3 ultimate, 4 hard, 5 moderate, 4 entry) checks out as quality books and (for the most part) good to read for the sake of /lit/ discussions and all.

>>4911124
Dubliners and Infinite Jest should be moved to "Ultimate"

>>4911157
lol

>>4911157
infinite jest is not a hard read.

>>4911157
you must be stupid

>>4911157
>Infinite Jest
>remotely difficult
It's a solidly medium-difficulty book. It's just long.

by the way, is this the new way to get /lit/ mad?

>>4911139
It's about reading difficulty, not quality.

Only one I really have a problem with is Scarlet Letter.

>>4911129
>>swann's way that high
>confirmed for never having read them
You're an idiot

>>4911183
Whoops, yeah. I suppose I can't say, then

>>4911187
swann's way is barely difficult at all. it belongs in moderate. are you seriously saying it belongs with ulysses and women and men?

>>4911192
Confirmed for not understanding Proust

>>4911185
Why does everyone hate this novel? Do you have bad memories of high school or something?

>>4911195
maybe the curtains are just fucking blue

>>4911195
have you read any of the books in that tier other than swann's way? here is a selection of zettels traum. what looks harder to you?

fuck everything about this thread

>>4911207
maybe you're just obtuse.

>>4911207
>this shit

>>4910744
>no greeks
>starter list

>>4911105
>>4910919
>>4910744

>These lists
>Ayn Rand
>1984
>One Flew Over


>No Goethe

>>4912159
there are two goethe books on the second list and goethe is not appropriate for the first and third other than maybe sorrows of young werther

>>4912173

Correction: There's one Goethe Book in the second list, and one steaming pile that Goethe regretted writing.

Remove Wertherfags from premises

>>4911210
>That book will never be translated
sux. I love that kind of weird annotated shit. What are some other books like that? The only things I can think of right now are House of Leaves and the last section of Dhalgren.

>>4910935
>perpetuates the idea

Go back to your intro sociology class and leave the discussion or adult subject to rational people rather than emotional schmucks with a guilt complex.

Just because the books are primarily from Europe and America does not imply that the best literature comes from these countries. Rather, since the creator of the list probably came from the aforementioned culture and the people using the list to get into literature are probably from the same culture, it's probably a damn good idea to stick to these books for an introduction to literature.

If you want a diversity list, go make one. Put all your african or south asian or other non-european literature on it, and stop trying to insinuate that because the list contains books from one or two cultures there is an innate sense of cultural stuperiority in that list.

the intermediate row

>>4912731
>someone spent their time of this

>>4912747
>Shitposting

>>4912731
THIS MAKES NO SENSE! Mastery level is a bunch of rubbish.

>>4912731
that's hilarious

>>4911129
While it may not be quite as difficult on a sentence-by-sentence basis, it still takes at least as much time and effort in total to finish, understand and appreciate In Search of Lost Time* as it does Ulysses.

* I'm assuming that the Swann's Way cover is just a placeholder for the entire sequence.

>>4912731
where to start

>>4912946
Don't.

Go read whatever you fucking want. Art doesn't have tiers of interpretive quality, except to the untrained eye.

>>4910744
What the fuck OP?

>>4912973
There's been a misunderstanding. I meant: "where to start telling this moron to fuck off?"

No oscar wilde? put dorian gray on there plz
also
>forgetting egypt is in africa
book of the dead

>>4912931
>hamlet
>low tier
stop trying to be a le edgy contrarian and admit it's good

I was going to start a topic but I figure this question can go in here, since it's kind of a "where should I start" question.

Haven't read fiction since high-school. Read non-fiction regularly, but at a slow pace. I don't plow through books, I do 30 - 45 minutes at a time.

Anyway I decided that having not read fiction since HS (almost 8 years now) was a bad thing and that I should try to branch out and become more cultured.

I tried to read As I Lay Dying and I was way out of my fucking depth. After the first 30 pages or so I had no clue what the fuck I read and absorbed absolutely nothing. I'm pretty ashamed. I've given up on books by getting bored of them, but I've never been unable to make heads or tails of something before.

Did I let my brain atrophy? Am I fucking hopeless? Should I just go back to reading non-fiction?

If there is a sliver of hope, please recommend a starting point for me.

(PS, in HS I enjoyed Brave New World, The Good Earth, and the Poisonwood Bible)

Thanks anon

you forgot the father of modern sci-fi ...

>>4913066
i will give you a reading list that will get progressively harder:


1984
the great gatsby
the road
the stranger
the picture of dorian gray
lolita
if on a winter's night a traveller

that should be good to get you started, none of the books are particularly long or difficult. you will enjoy 1984 if you liked BNW, it's similar but more plot based.

also the granddaddy of all literature

>>4913109
or not
apart from the vast cultural references you will get after reading it, the odyssey has little value in itself; being originally an oral poem, it doesn't have much in terms of 'literary' value -- essentially you are forced to read for the plot, and the majority of translations are wildly different and so there is no singular "the odyssey" because none of the translations stay to strictly to the original text

>>4913116
true but as one of the very first pieces of fiction ever to be physically recorded subsequently it has had an effect on literature as a whole. While it is also true that both the Iliad and The Odyssey were originally meant to be presented in the Hellenic sung poetry format the fact that the writing of said poem was so well crafted that i could be recorded and then thousands of years later translated, as you said, by swathes of different people and still have the same rapturous effect I think is quintessentially good literature.

>>4913105
Read 1984 in HS as well, just preferred BNW. But my gf owns both Gatsby and The Road so that list is a perfect starting point. Thanks much.

>>4913131
tfw no patrician bf

>>4913171
Hahaha. We've been together 2 years and known eachother for like 3.5 and I've never seen/heard her reading anything but ASOIAF.

She ain't trippin.
She really wants me to read those books but holy shit 5 books with like 1,000 pages each is a big commitment. Esp since homie might die before he even finishes the series.

>4913200
not worth reading them imo -- anyone got that image with the "for this many pages you could read ..." ?

>>4913211
Anyone? I'm interested in seeing it.

>>4910919
>that list

Someone post lit's top 100 or whatever the list was.

>>4913200
you don't need to read past the third book. only 3 were planned. now he's just flailing around

>>4910919
>atlas shrugged
Also, Borges said finnegans wake made no sense to him. And Borges is as erudite as you can get, so i assume no one actually understands it.

>>4914000
Anthony Burgess named it a classic in humour.

>>4914000
Borges never said that. Did you even read the essay?

>>4914000
Borges was incredibly smart, but speaking as an 18y/o whose not read that much, Finnegans Wake made plenty sense to me. If English is your first language, you're in with a fighting chance.
After the first fifty or so pages it goes a bit haywire though

>>4914029
who hasn't read

>>4914018
I wasn't talking about the essay, i thought i read something like that from an interview. A quick search led me to this quote: "Finnegans Wake es invenciblemente ilegible" (Finnegans Wake is invincibly unreadable), although it may not be the interview i remembered.

>>4914044
Read his "selected non-fiction". He puts forth a very profound analysis of Joyce. I can't find any online versions, but I read when I was still at Uni during the semester. Moreover, Borges's analyses on other writers is equally profound and worth reading.

>>4910824
>/lit/ starter kit
>starter kit
what about it do you not get? It is supposed to be entry level

>>4912731
>Gurdjeff

I laughed

>>4910744
>yfw /lit/ starter kit consists mostly of american books
Gee, that's supposed to MEAN something, r-r-r-ight?

>>4912977

>>4910935
>Because this list, as of now, perpetuates the idea that lliterature is a practice that belongs solely to Europe and America which is simply untrue.
Well there's the east Asians I guess but they aren't really on the same level as their western counter parts. Africa can get fucked.

>>4912931
Your taste isn't the best man.

>>4911124
Swap On The Road for F&L In Las Vegas

>>4916161
Or maybe rum diary.

>>4910744
Is this a joke?

improved

>>4916941
Did you just seriously put The Alchemist in the same tier as mother fucking 100 years of solitude I kill you nigger

>>4916941
this is extremely shit and exclusively based on (bad) personal taste.

>>4916949
stay mad lol
>>4916968
I'm sorry that your favourites didn't make the list faggot

>>4912931
>The Stranger
>god-tier
I've never understood why The Stranger is held in such high regard, I've read it 2 times, and still don't see what so "god-tier" about it. Anyone care to explain?

>>4916973
>I'm sorry that your favourites didn't make the list faggot

>language and mind: philosopher king
>Carlos Castaneda two tiers above Dostoevsky, Melville and Pynchon, three tiers above Fitzgerald and Kafka

I enjoyed Don Juan, but in terms of literary merit, this is ridiculous. Chomsky in 'philosopher king' is a joke. His ideas get worse the further he moves from pure linguistics towards cogsci and philosophy. Language and Mind is inconsequential armchair bullshit.

>>4916941
Why always the great gatsby? There are more excellent works from Fitzgerald. Stop following each other like sheep. This side of paradise for instance was much better than the great gatsby.

>>4916986
I have no idea either.

>>4916986
I wouldn't call it god-tier personally because its more like a parable than an actual novel, but the writing is reallly good. Every paragraph, every line, quite often even every word has a purpose. The imagery, events, style of the writing completely mirror the thematic development of both the section and Absurdism at large. Its just masterfully composed, in analysis you can pull out the point of the book from nearly any passage in it, thats how well he wrote it.

I also like the atmosphere and some of the images but thats more a personal thing

>>4916941
>schopenhauer

Why does /lit/ love Schopenhauer so much? He was just an angry old man who repackaged Indian philosophy for Europeans.

>>4917249
Have you read the World as Will and Representation?
There is more going on there than just repackaging Eastern thought, he substantially altered Kant's philosophy

If you even just scan his ideas about the psyche and motivation he's bizarrely in tune with what people think now

>>4912931

I get the impression that the person who made this chart hasn't read even half of the books on it.

>categorizing books based on arbitrary criteria like personal taste and reputation

If anybody with an ounce of erudition saw this thread, they would be appalled.