/lit/ - Literature

>>5944396
>killing thing
heuh

I actually struggle to see why its a metaphor

That's not an actual metaphor. That's just a mildly interesting that is presently happening.

You'd nudge the elbow of a friend and go "Hey, check it out, he's got the killing thing between his teeth, but it doesn't have power to do it's killing," and he'd go, "Huh, you're right," and ten you go back to talking about whether or not making dogs wear sunglasses constitutes animal abuse.

>>5944401
Could someone explain? I don't get it either.

>>5944396

It's a metaphor for what?

I must be autistic. I don't understand what's going on here either.

>>5944419
My Metaphor 8-Ball says the answer is "Ennui in modern-day urban youth in the wake of the Game of Thrones TV show overtaking the books".

>>5944396
>a literary masterpiece
no. They think it's good YA lit.

it isn't that either. But you were even further off the mark lol

>>5944445

I want my keks back.

>It’s a metaphor, see
fucking gangsters

"A metaphor is a figure of speech that identifies one thing as being the same as some unrelated other thing, thus strongly implying the similarities between the two."
Ok, I get the first thing is the cigarette, but whats the other thing?

>>5944457

There isn't. The guy who wrote it is autistic. Autistic people don't understand metaphors.

"It’s a metaphor, see: You put the killing thing right between your teeth, but you don’t give it the power to do its killing."

>>5944457
The other thing is cancer.

Are you seriously this dumb or just looking for gripes against the author

>>5944455
Ey, that's a nice simile you got there. Be a shame if something were to happen to it.

>>5944473


how are cigarettes and cancer unrelated?

if anything it's a metonymy or a synedoche

Never read the book but the film sucked. Watch the spectacular now. Same writers except not working with the drivel John green pens for his fan girls.

worst movie i've seen in a long time

>>5944396
he's saying you shouldn't give cancer the power to make your life depressing or whatever

but funny thread guys

>>5944481
You don't put cancer in your mouth.
You can't control cancer like you can a cigarette.

He has cancer ravaging his insides and he wishes to control it as easily as not light his cigarette

/lit/ is worse than a remedial english class

>plebs can't even into the Phallus as signifier

try again

I have never even read a word of John Green
Can someone give me a rundown of why we hate him so I can join the circlejerk?

>>5944490
John green pls go

>>5944499
You're trying too hard to be clever

>>5944500
well from what i've gathered he's a successful minor celebrity with a teen girl fanbase

>>5944490
it's his own fault for smoking

>>5944490
So it's in effect an anti-metaphor, a metaphor describing the situation exactly the way it isn't.

That's...kind of impressive, really.

I just figured he was going "You know what, I'm dying of cancer, but at least I can look cool and profound while doing so." I mean, you've got all those cool rockstars girls swoon over, and they all die young, right? Well, you're gonna die young, so why the fuck not be a cool rockstar in the meantime?

>>5944500
Hes got some okay books, all of his books are pretty much about the same thing.

>>5944511

Yeah, the amount of effort I put into that post is mind boggling. I'll be bed-ridden for weeks

>>5944500
writes shitty books that do well because he fits the 'writer struggling with the great american novel' archetype that shallow bibliophiles gawp over and because his brother built a subculture that will adore anything they shit out because it's alternative.

>>5944527
Why would you want to be cool if you could stay in bed and read?

>>5944533
Yup, stay assblasted

>>5944500
People like reading him. /lit/ hates it when reading is enjoyable. Reading should be painful and hard, so you can boast about it.

I mean, fuck books, they're an unpleasant but necessary evil you have to go through to live the Literary Lifestyle.

>>5944543
>>>/tumblr/

>>5944543
>fuck books, they're an unpleasant but necessary evil you have to go through to live the Literary Lifestyle.
should be our slogan tbh

>>5944549
>>>myspace.com

>>5944543
>finding read hard

>>5944543
>People like reading him. /lit/ hates it when reading is enjoyable. Reading should be painful and hard

>plebs actually think reading Wallace or Pynchon is hard

>>5944560
>can't write a 3 word coment

>>5944490

that's still not a metaphor

that's a symbol

jesus

>>5944662
>coment

>>5944500
He writes YA lit, which is of the literary quality one expects of YA lit, and got wildly successful for it. Like all wildly successful creators of any media, he has a fanbase which insists it is the best shit ever. Because it is a book, this takes the form of finding it deep, meaningful, excellently written, and deeply moving.

Since this means that low-prestige and popular things are being considered as good as or better than the high-prestige or elite things we like, this causes a feeling of threat to our main source of perceived superiority, resulting in an outcry and hatred.

Also, we don't like its prose, plot, or characters very much at all, and it's really obnoxious to hear about how awesome this thing we hate is from everyone.

>>5944657
Infinite Jest *is* hard - it's very long and not particularly engaging, which means it requires significantly more dedication to keep reading and one is likely to lose interest before the end unless they force themselves to continue. One also needs a Postmodernism Tolerance far beyond baseline.

>>5944543
>I mean, fuck books, they're an unpleasant but necessary evil you have to go through to live the Literary Lifestyle.
>/lit/

>>5945392
I actually don't even think Infinite Jest is very good and don't like postmodernism at all, but I found the book extremely readable all the same. There was something about it that just made it compulsive to read. It's one of those books whose public perception has always mystified me for that reason. The easiest way I could describe how I felt about it was that it was like having a conversation with a friend where you both really want to say something and are almost speaking over each other in excitement. The two friends here being my internal monologue and the text

>>5944396
50€ bucks that 9 or of 10 /lit/izens haven't read the book but continue to shitpost about out-of-context extracts because
>muh YA novels

>>5944471

I've never read Fault in our Stars, and this is what I though OP was talking about.

>>5944396
He actually never says that in the book, they just made that up for the movie.

>>5945441
im one of em and im proud

>>5944396
It sshould be a joint.
"It’s a metaphor, see: You put the happiness thing right between your teeth, but you don’t give it the power to do its joy."
That's 4chan.

well, green's style isn't something special

'le petit prince' is full of edgy stuff like 'adults don't understand', 'adults are stupid', 'children understand' etc and ends with an edgy suicide of the title hero and it is considered a masterpiece children's literature, way more approved than 'fault in our stars'

>My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations.

>“I don’t want to have ‘breakfast for dinner,'” I answered, crossing knife and fork over my mostly full plate. “I want to have scramble eggs for dinner without this ridiculous construction that a scrambled egg-inclusive meal is breakfast even when it occurs at dinnertime.”

>>5944543
>books
>unpleasant

>>5945694
Le petit prince is actually clever and well-written tho.

fucking teenage girls think the entirety of TFIOS is a literary masterpiece, and for that i have truly lost hope in all humanity

>>5945705
yes
it shocks me that it's considered a children's literature though

>>5944417
There's nothing to get except that John Game is a shitty writer and Faulty Stars is something any normy faggot could write in an afternoon

>>5945733
Pretty sure it was written for children, and children love it, how is it not child lit

>>5945752
childrens' literature is something that adults can look at with respect, despite its simplicity.
for example, Shel Silverstein's "The Giving Tree"
it's a good ass book and even literary masters can recognize it.
but the fault in our stars is just pure shit. it's only good if you're young and inept

>>5945694
Nope, le petit prince is pretentious shit

>>5945752
well it has a way too disturbing ending

>>5945733
They have to start reading the burgoise propaganda from an early age.

>>5945806
Haven't you read the original versions of Grimm's tales? They were dark, grim (pun intended) and edgy. Princesses get raped and shit

>>5944543
fuck off reddit

>>5945806
How do you suppose? (not being flippant)

>>5945814
yeah well maybe those Princesses should have been dressed more conservatively.

>>5945820
kek

>>5945814
>edgy

No they aren't. They are folk tales recorded by the Grimm brothers, they are objectively not edgy.

>>5945819

his flock of wild geese could fly again...
almost as 'orlando' ends, lol

>>5945836
By today's standards, they are pretty edgy

>build somewhat cleverish metaphor into your novel
>explain it to make sure people understand it
Either Green is a humongous faggot or we all have to pity him because his audience is stupid as all fuck, and he knows it as well as we do.

>>5945852
John Green is a faggot and a cuck.

His fans are stupid as fuck. Neither of them realise that fact, it makes the whole thing more amusing.

>>5945868
I like his youtube stuff though. Vlogbrothers is pretty shit, but I like CrashCourse

Also, fault in our stars isn't even his worst novel. I think Paper Towns is much worse. It's just not as successful.

>>5945868
Proof of his cuckoldry?

>>5945868
>>5945852
faggot detected

>>5944396
He probably did it like that because he knew his audience is to stupid to identity a metaphor without clearly stating it as such

>>5944518
I thought it was the stars' fault.

>>5944527
Its not an anti metaphor or a metaphor really.

He has cancer and he's saying he has full awareness of the cancer but doesn't let it get the better of him.

>>5944500
>"Why are breakfast foods breakfast foods?" I asked them. "Like, why don't we have curry for breakfast food?"
>"Hazel, eat."
>"But why?" I asked. "I mean, seriously: How did scrambled eggs get stuck in with breakfast exclusivity? You can put bacon on a sandwich without anyone freaking out. But the moment your sandwich has an eggs, boom, it's a breakfast sandwich."
>Dad answered with his mouth full. "When you come back, we'll have breakfast for dinner. Deal?"
>"I don't want to have 'breakfast for dinner,'" I answered, crossing knife and fork over my mostly full plate. "I want to have scrambled eggs for dinner without this ridiculous construction that scrambled eggs-inclusive meal is breakfast even when it occurs at dinnertime."
>"You've gotta pick your battles in this world, Hazel," my mom said. "But if this is the issue you want to champion, we stand behind you."
>"Quite a bit behind you," my dad added, and Mom laughed.
>Anyway, I knew it was stupid, but I felt kind of bad for scrambled eggs.

>When adults say, "Teenagers think they are invincible" with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don't know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail.

>>5945941
His wife was caught sleeping with a nig

>>5946233
Oh jesus christ

>>5945941
His wife had a kid with some young black guy iirc

>>5945902
>I like crash courses
So you like liberal revisionism?

>>5946233

That's not really from the book. That's like, from a self-published thing written by a teenager.

>>5946233

When I started reading, I honestly thought you were just mocking the book, but then I finished and realised is all from the book. I'm so sory for tthe people who like that shit, at least now we have a more sure way to identify people we shouldn't relate to

>>5946261
oh, you wish, you Faulty-Starred fanboy, you wish

>>5946247
Not that guy but that's how I passed my AP World test when I was a sophomore. I couldn't hate John Green after all he did for me.

>>5946292
Kill yourself.

>>5946293
What's the problem? Was he using the wrong sources for studying for an AP test?

>>5946318
>Was I

FTFY

>>5946328
Is everything ok? Why are you so angry?

>>5946328
What sources would you tell people to use instead? I never took AP world history when I was in school.

>>5946346
Dynamic IP detected. Come on, kid, this is the first trick on the book.

>>5946246
He is the ultimate cuck. It makes what he writes even more pathetic.
You can't respect a man like that.

>>5946346
lol if you actually believe this proves anything.

>>5946359
Perhaps the class notes that he was obviously too lazy to take? Or the legitimate history textbooks he was too lazy to read? Or the primary sources he is probably too stupid to digest?

I don't really think people consider it a literary masterpiece. But it fills all the right checkboxes: downtrodden lead, Written from the perspective of a female with a male love interest (teen girl dream basically).

>>5946431
Are the videos that inaccurate? I haven't watched them. But if it's due to it being liberal revisionism, consider that the AP exam will also be examining his knowledge of liberal revisionist history.

I just saw the film and there's a lot of teen phooey but as far as an emotionally engaging, efficient story, its well done. William Defoe felt like he hijacked everything, was a nice surprise.

>>5944543
All reading is enjoyable if the book is good, why read something if you don't enjoy it. I don't read John Green because it physically hurts to read that tosh.

>>5944415
It's not animal abuse. Dogs wearing sunglasses are cool and I'm sure if we can understand dogs they'd agree.

>>5944417
a cigarette is like cancer. it's a volatile, destructive thing that can destroy it if you allow it to.

the correct response to cancer is to approach it with full intimacy, to understand that it can destroy you if you allow it, and to resist that destruction.

however, that is the correct response only because cancer is unavoidable. you must come to terms with it because it has real, intimate power over you. a cigarette is entirely different, it is avoidable, so the correct response to cigarettes is entirely different. so it's not a metaphor at all, it's just a quirky, expensive compulsion.

the explanation is that john green is dumb

>>5944417
a cigarette is like cancer. it's a volatile, destructive thing that can destroy you.

the correct response to cancer is to approach it with full intimacy, to understand that it can destroy you if you allow it, and to resist that destruction.

however, that is the correct response only because cancer is unavoidable. you have to actively enable cigarettes to harm you, whereas cancer will kill you passively. the correct response to cigarettes is passivity, the correct response to cancer is action. so it's not a metaphor at all, it's just a quirky, expensive compulsion.

the explanation is that john green is dumb

>>5945392
Infinite Jest is potentially my favorite book. I've read it ~4 times now. The only thing difficult about it is its length. It's actually a very easy book to understand if you put the time in.

>>5946532
the correct response is actually to get a job instead of doing all this stupid shit with cigarettes

>>5944476
ayyy paulie

>>5944396

I really fucking hate to (poorly) play the devil's advocate here, but let's try and get something outta this

he says it is a metaphor, so, cigarette = cancer

both are bad, both can kill you. Indeed, both do, but let's take in context this shitty muh feels narrative as a whole, and assume death means other than turning off the physical functions of you body for ever, and think death as no will to live. Like a depressed person would think, that is indeed the case with the girl from this shitty book.

Now let's swap these roles, and we got this:

>cigarette is to permanent shutdown of your body functions
as
>cancer is to losing the will to live

this is really the only way I see this sentence making any sense here, all taken into context

makes sense?

>>5946600
I tried to turn the metaphor into a simile, but I don't really think my line of thought legitimate the metaphor. it was lazy craftsmanship

>>5946233
Oh.

Oh dear God.

>>5944396
You're still buying packs of cigarettes and giving money to Phillip Morris.

>>5946246
>>5946239
Proof???

The only I truly hate this "The fool in our bars" band is that it makes me want to smoke and I just quit goddammit

ps: printer is low on ink

>"It’s a metaphor, see: You put the killing thing right between your teeth, but you don’t give it the power to do its killing."

>>5944396
John Green himself answered this question (learn how to google, godfuckingdamnit)
>>5944490
got it right

http://fishingboatproceeds.tumblr.com/post/91855326253/its-a-metaphor-i-have-no-doubt-that-you

>>5946247
Wait, are you a marxist complaining about liberals in the sense of pro-market guys, claiming they obscure the class-struggle or something or are you a Republican complaining about how he seems to vote for Obama?

>>5946796
>calling people Republicans
>all this pseudo-intellectual political babble
Let me guess. You came straight from tumblr, or you just started your highschool politics course?

>>5946780

still not a metaphor

>a character in a novel saying that something is a metaphor is not the same thing as the author of the novel saying that it’s a metaphor. Gus’s intellectual grasp often exceeds his reach (he calls a monologue a soliloquy, and misuses quite a few of the bigger words in his vocabulary).

kek nice save

>Gus’s idea is that the cigarette is a metaphor for illness

yeah john greene doesn't know when to use metaphor and when to use symbol

>>5946807
How dense of a motherfucker you must be to not get the political babble was a parody of marxists
Also, only retarded Republicans say "liberal" when they mean leftist

>character says something wrong
>blame the author

what is this some kind of cultural hangover from the bible?

>>5946826
>look how smartz i am i made ironic political joke
Definitely tumblr

>>5946828
when the character is regularly used as a self-insert and mouthpiece for the author to overtly pontificate (>>5945695), this isn't inappropriate.

>>5946846
i doubt there is evidence in the text that this is the author's own thoughts and he doesn't understand what a metaphor is. i'd probably have an easier time proving that everyone is rippin on YA because they want to feel knowledgeable and like they have taste using the text of this thread

there is no psychic link between author and character, sorry

>>5946843
>I can't into reading comprehension
Definitely Republican

>>5946293
What the fuck bro?

>>5946796
John Green is liberal. Stop being obtuse, you tumblr faggot.

>>5946934
you obviously haven't seen the amount of posts on tumblr making fun of him

>>5946988
Tumblr making fun of someone for not being left enough says very little and what the fuck are you doing on this board?

because he never lights it, he doesn't give the cigarette the power to hurt him, while at the same time it's firmly grasped in his teeth

like an enemy in a cage, with the key just out of reach, I control all aspects of this situation

>>5946934
liberal as in voting for Obama?
I'm confused because people normally blame right-wing people for historical revisionism (such as holocaust deniers and whatnot).
Also, this is for you and americans, stop fucking the word liberal and use it like the rest of the world to indicate people who believe in the market, please

I feel you OP.

>My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations.

I cannot fathom this sentence. It just doesn't make sense to me at all even as a flowery image, and I just interpret it as a more collected version of "I CAN'T EVEN"

The shit in my ass.

>there are people on this board who like tfios
>there are people on this board who watch crash course
>there is probably a nerdfighter in this very thread

just die in my sleep already

>>5947028
>what the fuck are you doing on this board?

being more intelligent than you obviously

>>5946452
All of Chinese history from Shang to Mao is covered in one ten minute long video. Two of those valuable minutes are wasted reading some original text which he reads off blandly and then proceeds to do nothing with. You tell me

>>5947103
Talk, talk, talk, that's all you can do.

>>5947077
It means that his thoughts are by nature scattered and that he can't organise/fathom them otherwise, i.e. he's too objective to take random thoughts/random stars and pretend they make a pattern. He's espousing postmodernism.
The Fault in Our Stars is a tremendously bad novel, but you're an even worse reader.

>“WHAT?!” I shouted aloud. “WHAT IS THIS LIFE?”

I remember reading this line and putting the book down to go take a shower, and I laughed about it the whole time shaking my head. It reads exactly the way tumblr girls write, but I really doubt anyone speaks like that. I couldn't believe this 30something year old goblin looking motherfucker wrote it, but then I watched his videos. What a faggot.

>>5947028
It sounds as though he's being an actual literary, that is, he's mixing with the different ranks of society and generally participating in humanity. Unless you plan on saying anything of merit about anything but metaphysics, this is a good habit.

Its the shaina woodley curse! Get this bitch out of shit

>>5947104
>All of Chinese history from Shang to Mao is covered in one ten minute long video. Two of those valuable minutes are wasted reading some original text which he reads off blandly and then proceeds to do nothing with. You tell me

well, not like you cannot write a haiku about the history of china and put in three line

>>5947136
>>5947168
>>5947189
oh great, invasion of the tripfags.

fuck off

>>5947205

just filter them like everyone else does

>there are actually people insecure enough who feel the need to distinguish themselves on an anonymous chinese anime forum

>>5947136

I figured that much apart from the "espousing postmodernism" part. I think you're giving him too much credit but then again I have seen you post before so I reckon you're giving yourself too much credit, as usual.

>>5946233
Fuck, he looks like me. There goes my writing career aspirations

>>5947214
One thing about having a name is, you can step in to people's defence without being accused of samefagging, and vice versa. See: >>5947168
I just thought it was cute that there was an obvious example of the tripcode's advantages right there in the thread you derailed to complain about it.

>>5947136
>he's too objective to take random thoughts/random stars and pretend they make a pattern
I'm not sure whether "objective" is the right way to describe the speaker. He certainly seems capable of metaphorical language.

I always got the sense that the line was supposed to convey awe at the speaker's thoughts--i.e., my thoughts are so amazing and vast (and incoherent) that I can't even parse them. Then again, I didn't read The Fault in Our Stars, so I'm working without context

>>5947218
you don't want to fetch hundreds of millions dollars from teenagers' pockets ?

>>5946233
>But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail.

I just couldn't stop laughing after that.

>>5947218
It's pretty easy to stop looking like a pasty leftist beta. Just eat red meat and hit the fucking gym.

>>5947224

>so anxious of being called a samefag that u use a trip

kek its ok it's entertaining to see the type of people who trip on an anonymous board and what they say and think

>>5947216
I agree that, probably, he wasn't being 'intentionally postmodernist', but isn't that his whole shtick? With him being a Christian chaplain but aggressively pro-multiculturalism? I'd taken the idea that he'd confused that for a legitimate insight, and so generally wrote on that topic. If I've gotten that right (I've never read him), then it's natural that, via relativism as an explicit subject, he'd have postmodernism as an implicit, or 'intuitive' subject. I'm just saying all this post hoc; I hadn't considered any of it when I wrote the post you're replying to.

>>5947234
>I didn't read The Fault in Our Stars, so I'm working without context
lmao neither

>>5944490
does john green browse /lit/? i feel bad now

>>5946532
havent read the book, but couldnt it be because hes a mature character who needs to learn lessons a la everything holden caulfield does?

>>5944490
That's retarded. He's not really in control of anything.

That's like... say I'm afraid the airplane I'm in is going to crash, so I bring an airplane remote controller with me whenever I fly. It doesn't actually provide any sort of protection or control over the plane I'm in. And if it goes down I'm fucked either way.

It's retarded.

>>5946600
>>5946609

>try my best to put my opinion
>no one gives a shit

damn
was it the way I said it?

>>5947517

>>5947517
You shouldn't put too much effort into a topic like this, I am sorry Anon.

>>5947555

>>5947555

it's okay I guess. You're actually going to laugh at this, but after I had posted it, I went to sleep, anxious to see what people would think about that when I woke up.

but well, it happens sometimes I guess.

>>5944490
Don't be surprised, anon.
In all university major threads we see most anons are STEM students; how would they understand what is not laid out as clearly as 2+2

>>5946846
>pontificate
That's a nice word there, a really nice word there.

>>5944415
if you drive a convertible in summer, wouldnt you want your dog to wear sunglasses?

I can't believe people still believe the whole cigarettes causes cancer meme when every knows that nicotine stops you from getting alzheimers and that smoking under the age of 25 if anything is good for you

>>5944396
>People actually find this to be a literary masterpiece?
I dunno, do they? I haven't noticed any.

>>5947629
Sometimes things need to be laid out clearly so that we can be sure that they are true.

>Dortmunder pulled out his Camels and stuck one thoughtfully in his face. He offered the pack to Kelp, but Kelp shook his head and said, "I gave them up. Those cancer commercials got to me."
>Dortmunder paused with the cigarettes held out in mid-air. He said, "Cancer commercials."
>"Sure. On television."
>"I haven't seen any television in four years," Dortmunder said.
>"You missed something," Kelp said.
>"Apparently I did," Dortmunder said. "Cancer commercials."
>"That's right. Scare the life out of you. Wait till you see one."

>>5947726
>nicotine stops you from getting alzheimer

Indeed. You know what else is proven to stop you from getting alzheimer? A bullet to the head before the age of 50. Ask your doctor about it!

>>5947733
Even if there are 6996 ways to calculate how you get 4 there is a pattern to follow which is not a subject to interpretation but a strict following of an algorithm...

Meataphors on the other hand may be as obvious to grasp as 2+2=4 or as some difficult arithmetic task. But the mathematical tasks have a pattern and metaphors are arbitrary and to get them you need to delve into literature on a deeper and more broad level(starting with the Greeks and moving from there), which I have scarcely seen done by STEM students.

Even though "the killing thing" has nothing to do with the Greeks in this case; metaphors, synecdochas, allegories all started from somewhere and developed in the language, literature, and culture - they do not follow a pattern and from my observations STEM students find them hard to grasp.

I don't want to insult STEM people, but I plea them to read more history and literature to be able to grasp literature, history and culture.

The metaphor may refer to a dick as well.
SInce men are the ones who kill and thus the dick a symbol of them, thus the killing thing.

is this deep or retarded?

does the character call it a "metaphor" because hes a retarded teen who actually does not know what a metaphor is?

or does jon green the grown ass YA writer not actually understand what a metaphor is?


I honestly cant tell.

>>5947810
>There is no algorithm to understand metaphor

What do you think is going on in your brain when you "grasp" a metaphor?

GUYS ISNT A PUTTING A CIGARRETE IN YOUR MOUTH AND NOT LIGHTING IT LIKE PUTTING A GUN IN YOUR MOUTH WITH NO BULLETS?

XD GUAS ITS A METAPHOR

>>5947938
Why don't you think it's a metaphor?

>>5947939
So for you language is not arbitrary ?

>>5947963
what the fuck is the metaphor?

>>5947966
What do you mean by language?

If language were arbitrary it would be useless. We use language to communicate so it makes sense that we can all agree on how to use it.

Read some Wittgenstein.

>>5947973
The cigarette. Or probably the act of holding it between the teeth.

What do you think disqualifies it from counting as a metaphor?

>>5947977
Where did you get the concept that"read" means what you think it means. It is an arbitrary word chosen to represent this idea of "reading".
Read some Saussure.

>>5944396
"It’s a metaphor, see: You put the dildo right between your teeth, but you don’t give it the power to actually do an entry. Uwh shit dowg, now I dishrekarded my oon advishe."

>>5944543
I find reading John Green painful and depressing , that's why i read Goethe instead

>>5947999
you are just describing it what he is doing, thats not a metaphor

what is he relating the cig to? what the fuck is the actual relation to what he is saying so i can know what holding a cig in your mouth but not lighting it is like?

"you put the cig in your mouth but dont light it, you dont give the killing thing the power to kill you; like walking around with a greasy ass cheese burger in your mouth but never taking a bite"
or
"its like putting a gun in your mouth with no bullets. edgy as fuck"
"its like keeping poison on the tongue but never swallowing"
"its like sucking my boyfriend off but never finishing him"
"its like a metaphor with no relation . . . pointless"

what a retard edgy fuck

>>5948045
it would fit if he wrote about raped teenagers who support each others

>>5948031
Just because the assigning of a task to a word might be arbitrary, it doesn't mean that language in it's entirety remains to be arbitrary.

>>5948083
Aren't there several posts in this thread telling you that? The idea is it's a metaphor for having cancer in your body. I haven't read the book or watched the film, but that's surely going to be obvious from context.

>>5948085
and getting raped by a ghostly dildo that flies around the haunted mansion?

this sounds like a brilliant idea of a novel, actually.

>>5947977

Some Davidson would do him good as well

>>5948090
>Just because the assigning of a task to a word might be arbitrary, it doesn't mean that language in it's entirety remains to be arbitrary.

So from the arbitrary arrangement of phones producing the phoneme [tekst] - the noun "text" ;
for example, through back formation of the noun text we came up with a verb text/ to text.

And in your opinion this is language not remaining entirely arbitrary ?

Words which are not entirely arbitrary have mostly been used as a description of a feature of the entity/the signified to which they are a signifier.

(example: the bird cuckoo; it's name while partly arbitrary derives from the sounds it makes.)

>>5946780
it fucking annoys me when people assume that characters are the same as the author

like when you see fucking lord henry quotes attributed to wilde

Why would you treat lines of dialogue as logical propositions? People misuse terminology in everyday life all the time.

From what I gather the kid is supposed to be 17 and extremely edgy. He'd have several mannerisms like that which don't make sense.

If I write a character who misreads Nietzsche (whis is fairly common among teenagers), does that makes me the idiot?

>>5948173
let's be honest friend. Lord Henry Wotton is one of the most obvious author avatars in fiction. Wilde was highly limited creatively and nothing he wrote that didn't contain at least one well-developed Wilde falls on its face. See all of his fairy tales. Pure tripe.

>>5944396
>People actually find this to be a literary masterpiece? The fuck?

is this b8

also 181 posts about how shitty YA is shitty

dear /lit/, please

After some consideration I've decided it is a metaphor.

There's a lot of this whoah authentic teen deepness through the film, good writing in a way, a little too smart for its own good.

>>5946780
it doesn't even come off as organic, who would speak like that?

>>5945695
God, what terrible writing. The narration and the dialogue both read like they were written by retarded teenage black girls playing at literary geniuses in a high school English class.

>>5944396
This whole thread, but especially
>>5946818
Don't know the difference between a character and the narrator/author.

It can very well be intentional that Augustus doesn't know, the fact that he gets this wrong adds to his character. All of you throwing your tampons around are fighting over something Augustus said, not something John Green said. And the fact that all of these panties are in a bunch over something he said shows that the character can't even be half that bad.

>>5945422
>It's one of those books whose public perception has always mystified me for that reason

That's called marketing and communication, and it costs millions of dollars (paid by the publisher to flood the media with hype, buzzwords, mysticism and unconditional admiration for one author)

Literally anyone with a good product that's not a masterpiece either (a book, in this case) and millions of dollars to risk can do the same thing and be touted as "fascinating, interesting, exciting" by the media and the consumers who will believe and propagate this opinion

>>5944396
I'm certain that the character is made to make a mistake here, because normal people often do.

>>5946233
>>5945695
That is terrible, and, I think, genuine on the author's part (unless his writing YA lit is a cash grab)

>>5947747
This didn't offend me at all.

>>5948943
>the fact that he gets this wrong
I'm still not seeing anyone explain how it's wrong. How can it not be called a metaphor? My dictionary gives me
>a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable
but also
> a thing regarded as representative or symbolic of something else, esp. something abstract

How is it not the second one?

>>5946233
The first one is a pretty good seinfeld routine i guess

>>5947136
The meaning is clear. The use of the word "fathom" is nevertheless incorrect.

>>5948103
Not him, but no, it's not. I get that it's related to cancer, fine, whatever. But it's no metaphor. It's symbolism, and it's barely even that.

Cancer in your body is an unlit cigarette in your mouth. Seriously? Sure, cigarettes cause cancer, but other than that, they have nothing in common, in fact they have polar opposites.

He cannot control cancer.
He cannot take the cancer out of him.

This isn't even an anti-metaphor, they are abstract in their differences. One is an object, the other is, well, cancer.

Turn this "metaphor" into a simile; you can do that with any average metaphor.
>Protip: You can't.

>>5944417
That's somewhat the point, though. Someone once posted here a Q&A John Green made where he said that the purpose of his characters was to be pretentious teenagers, those "deep" dialogues that they have are nonsense used to demonstrate their struggle to appear intellectual and different.

>>5949332
Stop using intellectual when you should be using intelligent.

>>5949268
>other than that, they have nothing in common
They can both kill you. That's the point of the comparison.

>it's no metaphor. It's symbolism
What's the difference, in your opinion? Bear in mind the second definition in >>5949061

>One is an object, the other is, well, cancer
Are you seriously saying that using a physical object to represent something that isn't a physical object leaving aside for the moment the fact that cancer is actually a physical thing means something isn't a metaphor?

>Turn this "metaphor" into a simile; you can do that with any average metaphor.
A cigarette is like cancer in that it can kill you.

I think the only odd thing here is that the object and what it stands for are related in a cause-effect way that most metaphors would avoid. Well, that and the fact that you can't really control cancer, but it seems obvious that is wishful thinking/positive attitude territory, not actual literal reality.

>>5944419
protected gay sex

>>5950147
>They both can kill you
Cancer can kill you, cigarettes can't. Cigarettes cause cancer, which kills you.

It's like a metaphor comparing bullets and guns. They both kill you right? This is a little tough to explain. Imagine that with the gun alone, we instinctively think that guns kill people because we don't think of them and bullets as seperate. But when you have a gun, and a bullet, the bullet kills people, the gun just shoots bullets.

When you see the word cigarette, you think they kill people. When you see cancer, you think cancer kills people. When you see side by side, you see cigarettes cause cancer, which kills people. Not them both killing people.

>What's the difference
It's symbolism in the sense that he thinks having an unlit cigarette, means his cancer is "unlit". Therefore, he has control over cancer. This is substituting one thing for another, not comparison at all.

The example they give for that second definition is as follows:
>"the amounts of money being lost by the company were enough to make it a metaphor for an industry that was teetering"

Now hold on, before you say that's just them using metaphor in a sentence. The metaphor here is that a company losing lots of money, is like an industry teetering in to collapse.

What do the two have in common?
>Both hemorrhage money.
>Both could potentially go brankrupt
>Both are in decline
These are direct, there is no possible way to disarm these, you cannot argue that they don't have these in common.

>One is a physical object used to represent one that isn't

That was completely different, you misunderstood the sentence. I was saying they aren't even an anti-metaphor. If someone was comparing something black, to something white. That would be an anti-metaphor, because they are opposites. But cancer and cigarettes have nothing in common that could be opposite. That's all I was saying.

Besides, you can hold a cigarette in your hand, you can hold cancer cells in your hand, but you can't hold cancer. Cancer is more of a category than a thing. It's be like comparing an emperor penguin to the sound a fish makes.

>A cigarette is like cancer in that it can kill you
I'll be honest, I looked at this and was almost convinced. But it still feels off, it feels incomplete, like the portion of it that breaks the metaphor was simply taken away.

If you add the part of it between his teeth, and not lighting it, it ruins it.

>An unlit cigarette is like cancer in that if you don't light it, it can't kill you.
That's the best I could do. I'm honestly curious in which way this makes sense. perhaps if he was comparing keeping it unlit to not getting cancer, but he's already got it, right?

I think I could give credit to that if just someone he was close to died of cancer, but no, he has it, and it's clearly him trying to control cancer, not avoid it. In that context it makes no logical sense.

Metaphors can be obscured, and this one is obscured behind an idiot teenager.

>>5951631
>>5950147
I'd also like to add because I'm an autistic faggot who thinks too hard about some shitty author's metaphors, that there is a way for him to "control" cancer, but even this is backwards.

He can have chemo therapy, this help stop cancer from killing him.
He can not light the cigarette, this stops the cigarette from killing him.

Notice how one is negative, the other is positive?

One takes away "the power to do its killing"
The other simply Not gives it the power.

He distinctly says "but you don't give it the power to do its killing" Which only works for the second example, and unfortunately without the first, you don't have a metaphor in this context.

He doesn't say "you don't let it do it's killing" This would make sense in both situations. But this is not whats said.

>>5951666
Actually he could light the cigarette but not smoke it. He could draw air through the cigarette but not let it enter his lungs. Lighting it is not the action that gives it power.

he's commenting on the emotional damage caused by cancer

cancer is like an unlit cigarette in your mouth--you choose to give cancer its power to destroy your spirit just as you give a cigarette the power to destroy your body

conceptual lines are a bit messy, what with cancer/cigarette being used together in the same comparison, but on a simple level, it works

>>5952037
The first one he might as well be smoking it, he's still breathing it in, and the second... does that even work? would that give you cancer?

Regardless, I think its very clear from the fact it's a cigarette, when he talks about giving it it's killing power, he means smoking it. As in lighting it.