/lit/ - Literature

No, it's overrated, overwritten, pretentious crap.
It's the kind of book people read just to sound smart but no none really understands.

1984 is pretty good, yeah. Not sure if it's the best book for travelling, though. It's better enjoyed in the comfort of your own home.

you want something entertaining?
confederacy of dunces
tortilla flat
a short history of nearly everything

Pick something truly enjoyable. Pratchett FTFW.

>>685699
>>685698
Ugh. Making decisions hard. More people?

>>685715

This would be a good author for travelling with. I'll suggest Small Gods.

Not good a book for traveling.

>>685699
I've yet to meet a 16 year old who didn't understand that book. gb2 grade 7, please.


Honestly though, 1984 is a little heavy for travelling. I'd pick something a little more accessible and easier to put down and pick up.

>>685741
What, you mean the crap they drill into the heads of students in AP English classes? That's just the superficially obvious and the symbolist bullshit the overzealous teachers imagine is in every book but clearly isn't.

Get the Penguin Classics version of 'The Travels of Sir John Mandeville'. It's the story of a medieval traveller who goes to india and meets people with dogs' heads and stuff.

Also, you should read 1984 at some point. Don't listen to this guy >>685699 because he's an idiot. The book's writing style is fairly subdued, actually, and it is not that complicated or difficult to understand (although deeper than some people give it credit for). It's just damned solid and worth a read at least once in your life.

>>685778
>I'm too smart for this board

>>685778
Right, right. Everything everybody knows about that book is just scratching the surface and only YOU have unlocked the true meaning of it. Congrats smartass.

>>685797
I believe they're saying that English teachers try to find symbolism in non-fiction books, and attribute meaning to every-fucking-thing, whether it be a crunchy leaf or a ketchup stain on someone's overalls.

>>685817
>implying with 1984 there isn't symbolism is almost everything

>>685817
English Literature student here. You're right. One of the theories used to analyse texts is Psychoanalytical, which is basically Freud, which Psychology has largely dismissed. It's respected as a good base set of workings from which other better theories have been built on, but not that respected.
Freud did talk a lot of crap. Then again, he only ever experimented with women.
...and I have to analyse texts in this way. Oh well, for a creative mind it's fun.

>>685830
disregard the op name, was from another thread.

>>685817
ketchup stains are a symbol of working class struggles

>>685842
It's saying that red flag is symbolizes Tomatoes/Ketchup,i.e., food rather than blood. The implication being that labor movement is really built around laziness.

I would have like 1984 a lot better if he hadn't written so much of it in that made up language. I get that he was trying to make his work timeless by not using an existing vernacular but did he have to make it so hard to decipher?

Also, hardly anyone understands 1984. Haven't noticed that most people who claim to like it are emo hipsters who claim that they identify with Winston and stupid shit like that?

Well, you're supposed to identify with him after he gets arrested but not before like most teenagers do. People seem to forget that even though the State's method of rehabilitation is bad, they do it because Winston is a menace t society and had to be stopped.

>>685882

>written so much of it in that made up language
>so much of it
>brief instances
>each one explained

Eh? Try reading Riddley Walker, you great big baby casual.

>>685882

>Confusing 1984 with A Clockwork Orange

>My face

>>685918
The fuck are you talking about? Hardly any of it is explained, you're supposed to infer the meaning of most of it from context. Or know the languages/dialects that it's derived from.

>>685929
>>I can't fucking read because I am a retard. I need to be spoonfed like a child. I can't infer obvious things from context.
Christ...

>>685882
You mean the newspeak? You got confused by that? Are you still in grade school?

>>685934
You must love Finnigans Wake.

>>685929

Actually all of it is explained. Every single instance. You'd have to be a child to not figure it out.

>>685944
>comparing Orwellian newspeak to Finnegan's wake

>>685945
In a companion book? Even when I could figure out what it meant a lot of NS seemed random.

>>685958
Most of it is damn obvious, but there's a vocabulary in the back of most books.

wut? How can you not understand the newspeak orwell used..

... I mean I read that when I was 14 in the original with english being my second language. I can't remember not understanding anything.

Quality thread, guys.

I recommend If on a Winter's Night a Traveler. It's pretty straightforward, able to be read in short chunks if the need be, and actually good. Probably a nice travel novel.

1984 is a little heavy for a travel read. Try A Life of Pie

>>685966
Not in mine. NS isn't even based on English, its words just rhyme with words from other languages with vaguely the same meaning.

>>685998

No, dude, you're thinking of "A Clockwork Orange."

doubleplus ungood is newspeak.

appy polly loggy is nadsat.

Get your dystopian novels straight.

>You now realize that 1984 and A Clockwork Orange have disturbingly similar premises.

>>685998
lol, I think you read the wrong book. You're probably thinking of A Clockwork Orange

>>686008
>YOU are now aware that every dystopian novel as similar premises

>>685968
Haha.

To the braindead pleb who can't understand Newspeak, I do declare you have been defeated by this post.

I gotta say I enjoyed it. It's a short read and to be honest it went in directions i did not expect which came as a pleasant surprise..

/lit/ is surprisingly easy to troll. Either that or they've never heard of Anthony Burgess. Neither one is good.

>>686023
>fapped to the sex scenes
>book is good

>>686008
>>686018

>We were all already aware that 20th century post-war dystopian novels have similar concerns and premises, but thanks anyway

I remember during a family vacation I got a star wars book, for Phantom Menace by Terry Brooks. I liked it. I was also 9 at the time. Only thing I could suggest is Ender's Game. I can pick up that book anytime, any page, and read from there.

I'm so harcore that I chose Crime and Punishment for travelling
I'm reading 1984 for the third time, this time for a paper due tomorrow. It's great but it's heavy material, specially that part of Goldstein's book, it's very interesting yet tiring
Watched the movie and didn't like it


inb4 ulysses