/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.10116287]

>what are you reading
>what are your thoughts on it so far

[Anonymous No.10116302]

Only 3 chapters in. Prose is flat and he has the vocabulary/prose of a 9th grader in a creative writing class. Other than that, I'm enjoying it so far. Seems more like an ideas guy than a writer.

[Anonymous No.10116347]

His archaic vocabulary finally clicked for me, I almost never have to check the dictionary anymore.
It's fucking incredible.

[Anonymous No.10116371]

>>10116287

Federalist Papers: Hamilton's rhetoric is great but he does gloss over and leave unaddressed certain valid points in order to ram home, again and again, his political project. What makes it readable is that the same project is considered quickly from multiple angles which cohere well, so that the text (the collected papers, essays) never really bores and regularly changes gears.

I'm moving into the big Madison chunk in the middle just now. I think it's partly that I was tired today but also I was just stuck on Madison's prose and barely moved a page or two while nodding off (reading during work breaks). My initial take is that Hamilton just reads better by today's standards but we'll have to see how the rest of Madison fares.

Stalled out in the middle of Songs of Maldoror, taking notes as I finish a verse which has made it a bit more tedious hence the stalling-out. I know who "Lohengrin" is, but I want to know who the (mythic?) characters "Leman, Lombano, Holzer" are: Norse/Germanic/other mythos? Google is no help.

[Anonymous No.10116387]

>>10116347

How long did that take to happen, anon? I’m proud of you for reading Shakeybake.

[Anonymous No.10116501]

>>10116387
>How long did that take to happen, anon?
Six plays (the great tragedies, Titus Andronicus and The Tempest). I also read A Midsummer Night's Dream translated into my first language.
Tbh I think that the plays might be varying in difficulty and I'm just imagining my improvement. The last play I read before JC was King Lear, which was a pretty thorny experience for me. In the meantime I haven't really improved my English at all, yet JC is much easier to read. The Tempest could confuse me a lot as well.

By the way, which are his essential comedies, not counting the two that I have already read?

[Anonymous No.10116568]

House of leaves

I haven't picked it up in a month. I was at the chapter that ended with the bookcase and the interest couldn't compete with other things.

[Anonymous No.10117250]

wealth of nations. I like it and I'm getting through it really quickly which is good.

[Anonymous No.10117254]

the art of the deal spanish translation
life altering, challenging
espcially because i only speak one language, german

[Anonymous No.10117274]

>>10116287
Being and Time

It's very well written, and it has a lot of well thought out concepts. No book has left me questioning my entire being as much as this one, however I can't read a lot at one time due to it also being the most dense philosophy I've ever read.

[Anonymous No.10117961]

A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism by Hoppe
Halfway through, have learned a bit. Some of the stuff goes over my head though. And there are some sentences that are too long. It's pretty good but I should've just read Democracy instead

[Anonymous No.10117969]

>>10117250
Is the Wealth of Nations worth reading? I have it but it's 700+ pages long, and whether Smith's observations were even true is still a matter of debate

[Anonymous No.10118190]

>>10116287
The Illustrated Man.
I think it's one of Bradbury's less known work. It reads like a series of interconnected short stories, however I don't really see the major plot in it other than the major plot device itself- the title. It has been a while since I read sci fi, but this book is one of the easiest books I've read in a long time.

[Anonymous No.10118196]

Magic Mountain.
I can really appreciate the pacing and the way the author makes his points up to now.

[Anonymous No.10118229]

The Fountainhead for an essay competition for scholarship, but I'm a liberal so I probably won't do any good on the essay anyways. I started American Pastoral last night and it is more my speed. Also my gf is jewish so that might just say something about me

[Anonymous No.10118273]

>>10118229
Why are you here again?
Also - American Pastoral is basically American Beauty in 20 hours of prose.

[Anonymous No.10118278]

>out of africa
honestly it's pretty mediocre, i'd probably have dropped it if i didn't have to read it for my book club. it's well written enough and some of the anecdotes are interesting enough but nothing about it grabs me.

[Anonymous No.10118281]

>>10116287
Dune. I'm around 120 pages in. I'd tell you how many chapters, but I wasn't counting from the start, and they aren't numbered.
So far, I'm impressed by two things: How much of a slow burner it is, and how it is so well written that that doesn't really bother me. Exposition is tightly woven into the plot without becoming a chore, and so far, it's good.

[Anonymous No.10118508]

>>10116287
Candide. It's fucking awesome so far.

[Anonymous No.10118521]

Crime and Punishment P&V

I like Dostoevsky.

[Anonymous No.10118526]

>>10116287
>The Castle
>K. is too ambitious and kind of annoying.

[Anonymous No.10118531]

>>10118521
Masterpiece. Read the Idiot too, which I find severelly underrated.
I was reading the Zhuangzhi which was too much for my 25 year old brain so I switched to something less philosophical and I am reading some of Aeschylus' tragedies. It's very fun and I find it hilarious that in Icetides he basically makes an arguement for limitless imigration.

[Anonymous No.10118551]

>Too like the lightning
Too many pointless gimmicks, over-convoluted naming systems (yes I get it different people call different people by different names why are you making such a thing of it), an obsession with gender roles (I'm fine with characters being demi-gender-fluid non-gender-role-conforming whatever or not but stop fucking virtue signalling about it) and the narrator's a patronising twat.

[Anonymous No.10118576]

I'm reading "All The Pretty Horses", by Cormac McCarthy.
Honestly, I thought it would be better in the beginning, Cormac has a very impressive style of telling a history, but i'm now in the middle of the book and hoping it doesn't fall flat.

[Anonymous No.10118621]

>stewart calculus
>terrible. Can't wait to be finished

[Anonymous No.10118631]

>>10118273
>American Pastoral is basically American Beauty in 20 hours of prose.
American Beauty was really cheesy and pandering, but I still thought it was pretty funny. Are you saying Pastoral is bad?

[Anonymous No.10118636]

Lookout cartridge. So far I still haven't found much redeeming quality for his intentionally dense style.

>>10118576
It doesn't get worse if that is what you're affraid off.

[Anonymous No.10118646]

Mao II by Delillo

I think Delillo's dialogue will always annoy me since he has that one tick or trick he repeats in every novel where characters repeatedly and elliptically talk around a subject than circle back and say something a little different than again then one more little detail and voila! suddenly meaning appears.

But he does do scenery setting pretty well, whether it's Beirut or London or Athens, or a homeless squatter's encampment in Tomkins Square Park

It's weird that the little differences between the 1980's and now seem more jarring than some of the 19th century novels I've read.
They'll be traveling through a section of Manhattan or London I know and see the World Trade Center or need to find a payphone, or they'll be back in their apartments, checking their answering machine, or changing their typewriter ribbon. (One character keeps recommending a word processor to a novelist.) Somehow this is more jarring to me than a carriage ride through the streets of 19th century St. Petersburg.

[Anonymous No.10118724]

>>10116287
Catch-22
Gretty pood.
How is Closing Time?

[Anonymous No.10118743]

>Trainspotting
I think it's a fun read. Scotland seems like a fun place.

[Anonymous No.10118760]

>Baldwin essay collection. And about to start Kerouac's diaries
>Baldwin was a funny, well read guy, but some of the essays verge on homoerotic whining. im half black, and im trying to get into some black lit.

[Anonymous No.10118783]

>Man in the High Castle
>It's breddy gud. I'm a full blown /pol/tard so naturally I don't agree with the author's perspective on the world powers but I like the book regardless. Neat how the narrative jumps between several different characters' perspectives and slowly ties them together. I like the irony of the in-story book about an alternate history that's actually reality. Also enjoy the simple, functional prose.

[Anonymous No.10118849]

I'm almost done (I have like 30 pages left); it's been a fun read. Fairly light, beautiful at turns, humorous at others; her exploitation of time/biological sex is well-executed rather than gimmicky, but there is something about her style of narration that reminds me of DFW: a kind of "Hi! Narrator here! Do you remember me? How clever I am? Ok now on with the story-" That can be a bit irritating. She's swinging her feminine penis hard. Even if I hadn't've read her journal entries on Joyce beforehand I wouldn't've been able to miss her enormous ego.

I'll probably read Mrs. Dalloway sooner rather than later. Woolf is far and away the best female author I've ever read.

[Anonymous No.10118852]

>>10116501
Merchant of Venice

[Anonymous No.10118873]

I’m 430 pages into pic related and I’m absolutely loving it. The book can switch from depressing to hilarious to beautifull all in one page and it all feels really well executed. Pynchon is one of a kind.


>>10118849
To the Lighthouse is a masterpiece desu

[Anonymous No.10118890]

>>10116287
I'm skimming through Crime and Punishment while repeadetly reading Antigone and King Oedipus, since the Ancient Greek tragedies are so short, they're quite nice to re-read before bed, and the translator's notes are excellent and very insightful.
Crime and Punishment has all the arguments i'll ever use, in my life, ever again, for morality, and the human spirit.
Also, ex-student and/or student is neither a worthless, nor useful, status in C&P. Torn, or "razkoljen", between the two fits Razkolnikov's character so neatly, it's brilliant. It hits the exact spot I hid in as a worthless 21 year-old student. The student who's neither worthless, nor useless, but has potential, such potential that society is willing to grant him a pass for being a worhless sack of shit.

[Anonymous No.10118894]

Just started yesterday. 20 pages in but it's engaging and the writing is great. Can't wait to keep reading.

[Anonymous No.10118900]

I'm reading Infinite Jest, currently unimpressed, feel like I've been memed in a big way, is there any beauty left in the world? was there any to start with?

[Anonymous No.10118906]

Much more psychological than anyone gives him credit for, and the insight he has on the sleaziness of true crime books and the mentality of actual, real life sadists is startling. His overuse of the word nigger and cunt is pretty dull though, and it bogs down the prose a bit.

[Anonymous No.10118908]

>>10118900
Like Louie CK is a comic's comic, DFW is a lit-major's writer.

[Anonymous No.10118914]

I love this, especially the masonic sperg shit

[Anonymous No.10119337]

>>10118190
That book is so cozy, I love Bradbury. Did you get to the story with the guys in the rain on Venus?

[Anonymous No.10119446]

>>10118646
Have you read Libra? That's what I'm currently occupied with. His dialogue is hit or miss, but he does a great job of establishing characters. The book conjures up a very gripping paranoid atmosphere, with all the plotting and undercover work and what not. It's probably the most thrilling novel I've ever read.

Pleasantly surprised to be desu, considering I didn't like his other books all that much (except for White Noise)

[Anonymous No.10119722]

i'm a /p/ /vg/ /wg/ /po/ and also /pol/tard that just picked up his second "real" book. the first one was "berthold brechts - das leben des galilei" which somehow caught my attention on reading.

bought thomas pynchons ""gravity's rainbow" based on recommendations from this page. what am i in for guys?

[Anonymous No.10119813]

Finished reading Miss Lonelyhearts. Great book, especially for such a short read. I expected a lighthearted romantic tale and well, I was off the mark.

Next up is either All the Pretty Horses or Pedro Páramo.

[Anonymous No.10119837]

Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde. (Note: Quite different than 50 Shades of Grey.)

Not terrible so far.

[Anonymous No.10119866]

>>10119722
You won't be able to comprehend a lot of it. Some of its funny, some of its very sad, some very disturbing, basically what war novels could never hope to do Pynch does in his own way. I wouldn't recommend you jump into it, read some modernism before postmodernism

[Anonymous No.10119872]

Hunchback of Notre-Dame. I liked Hugo's discourse on Gothic and Greco-Roman architecture in it a lot. Though so far none of his digressions have been half as good as the ones in Les Miserables, the story backdrop in the 1400's turns out to be pretty spooky and surreal, not something I expected.

[Anonymous No.10119885]

Orlando anon here; I just finished it. It fucked me up desu

[Anonymous No.10120172]

The Art of Happiness by Epicurus

Epicureanism seems almost as wrongheaded as bayesianism to me. The rare occasions he gets something right it's usually for the wrong reasons. Still, I respect his thought as science is essentially epicurean with some baconian modifications

[Anonymous No.10120186]

>>10116287
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
I don't like Zarathustra as a main character, he comes off as a snob with a superiority complex.

[Anonymous No.10120196]

>>10118636
Once McElroy's style "clicks" it really doesn't seem that dense anymore, and there's a rhythm to it that only a few other authors have matched for me. It's definitely off-putting at first, though.

[Anonymous No.10120217]

Compelling as all hell, though I have to admit I expected it to go further in its decrying of the fall of the Italian nobility based on its reputation. Deliciously opposed to the pretensions of the nouveau riche, which appeals to me after years of interacting with people who think becoming wealthy makes them perfect in all other areas.

[Anonymous No.10120271]

I'm reading Tails Gets Trolled. I think it should be added to the western canon

[Anonymous No.10120305]

>>10120196
ive only read ancient history, but that experience has led me to assume that anyone who complains about the difficulty of mcelroy is a drooling retard.

[Anonymous No.10120321]

>>10117274
This is on my shortened to read list. If it ends up being to long check out Introduction to Metaphysics, its great. Heidegger is a great writer and obviously a genius. Politics get in the way but philosophically he is unstoppable.

[Anonymous No.10120333]

Halfway through and slowly losing interest.

[Anonymous No.10120350]

>>10116287
just finished the name of the rose today. amazing book. comfy setting, intellectually stimulating, extremely satisfying conclusion.

never thought i'd find women burning on pyres sexy (though this was tangential to the main plot), but here we are.

[phreaker1997 No.10120942]

>>10120333
pynchon´s worst book

[phreaker1997 No.10120951]

>>10118873
does the book gets more easy to understand? or is it logic out of the window until the last page?

[Anonymous No.10120976]

Gwindy's Button Box by Stephen King and some other guy.

Intriguing set-up that never paid off, just not satisfying and really rather lame.

[Anonymous No.10120987]

>>10117969
Economist here.

The Wealth of Nations is absolutely not worth reading unless you're interested in the historiography of the origins of Capitalist thought.

None of it except the most basic concepts are still relevant in the field.

[Anonymous No.10121013]

The Crying of Lot 49.

Its a lot less obnoxious than I was thinking it would be. It also is actually funny at times which is nice.

[Anonymous No.10121017]

>intro to heidegger
>going fine from greek to scholastic to early modern ontologies
>nigh impenetrable dasein and beings Being when it comes around
every time

[Anonymous No.10121026]

>>10119722
If you are a /pol/tard, I honestly have no idea what you could get out of GR.

Like it could literally be anything.

[Anonymous No.10121027]

>>10116302
I would argue that the narrative structure is also pretty great in that book. The ending of Palmer Eldritch is declared to you very early on, but its treatment is constantly changing as you dive deeper into the story.

[Anonymous No.10121037]

>>10118631
Probably was bait desu.

[Anonymous No.10121045]

My mom told me that pic related's pretty good, so she gave me her old copy of it even though she didn't expect me to actually read it. Honestly, it's pretty good so far (which I didn't expect from it)

[Anonymous No.10121061]

The Sound and the Fury
about fifty pages in and actually struggling with this one. I've read almost all of pynchon's books and even those felt easier than this.

Is there anything I should read before this or should I continue the dive?

[Anonymous No.10121151]

>>10121061
Faulker more than most other authors usually makes me say "what the fuck am I reading?" But it's intentional on his part and the overall takeaway of a reading is all the better for it once you start connecting the pieces to begin the process of interpreting the work and where the meaning may lie. I finished As I Lay Dying recently and the thing I notice is that he gives the shape (form) of ideas or events without necessarily disclosing their contents, which are trickled as the story-state progresses such that putting things, previously incomprehensible, together are the small revelatory moments in themselves (enriching the past-read and current-reading) that makes bearing through it worthwhile.

[Anonymous No.10121209]

>>10120942
>>10120951
a play in two acts

[Anonymous No.10121248]

>>10116287
The Waves by Woolf.
it's the literary equivalent of watching a Mike Tyson fight; it's astonishing that anyone could swing this hard this consistently for so long. Every sentence and every paragraph is on point, you could quote any page and it's brilliant.
Also thematically it's very involved; narrow focus but quite dense.
It's almost like riding a train, high velocity and everything is a blur. Probably going to have to reread.
I wouldn't recommend this as an intro to Woolf's shit but definitely read it.
also it's odd that The Waves is never cited as existential fiction when it's literally 300 pages of existential introspection

[Anonymous No.10121253]

>>10121061
you should have intro'd with AILD but it's not gonna kill you. unless it does.

[Anonymous No.10121258]

>>10121061

Just finished this one. I had the exact same feeling. You need only keep pushing through, lad.

[Anonymous No.10121269]

>>10117969
>Is the Wealth of Nations worth reading?
yes

[Anonymous No.10121394]

>>10118900
the general notion is read 200 pages and if you dont have the motivation to keep reading after 200 then drop it

IJ has some nuggets of gold in it despite being maymay status. I finished it earlier this year took me 3 months about 20 pages per day. I personally do not care for the long form constant digression with a fuckton of footnotes at the end. Yet if I were to love this style of writing DFW wrote it amazingly well

In particular I enjoyed DFW's commentary on depression sadness and addiction

[Anonymous No.10121399]

>>10121013
Just finished lot 49

best part is the pothead band being named the paranoids lmao

[Anonymous No.10121426]

Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco. Halfway through it. First time reading Eco, really love how Eco portrays the search for knowledge and why it is important. The latin is annoying as fuck, reminds me of Nabokov

Also am almost done with the Trial by Kafka, Kafka just puts thoughts ive already had into books. I love how quickly things happen in Kafka's books, no fluff. The Trial to me represents two things, 1 how the state even when intending to do "good" things, protect people, make lives better etc recklessly steamrolls life and can't give a fuck, just how things go. Doesnt matter if you are guilty or not you still have to fret over your trial

2 the importance of relationships, notably lust. josef k has a few sexual liaisons with women somewhat connected to the outcome of his trial, these women seem to do this often with others involved with the court. He also has numerous connections to the court offered to help him in his trial (his encounter with the painter had me laughing really hard, he buys a fuckton of meh paintings just because he wants to impress this painter so that maybe just maybe he will be successful in the trial, the painter can pull strings in the courts. so hes scrambling out of a cab with all these leftover paintings and its copies and copies of the same painting lol).

[Anonymous No.10121466]

>>10121426
Have you read The Prague Cemetery? It's Eco's best

[Anonymous No.10123129]

bump

[Anonymous No.10123140]

2666

Only read a few pages, so I'm not sure

[Anonymous No.10123193]

>>10116302
And flat in the sense of depressing too. I'm often left feeling quite flat after a session with Dick.

I recently came across a hardcover, 'Voices From the Street'. It seems to be an early effort, something that wouldn't be available if he hadn't achieved such status with his later work. Anyway, I read a big chunk of the book's beginning. It left me with that same flat depressed feeling.

[Anonymous No.10123504]

Half way through a second britt hagarty book. These are 'first novels' by a local writer. He's no longer alive; hit by a car coming home from a halloween party about 17 years ago. These are memoirs, more or less, of his earlier years. His eventual descent into addiction and incarceration. Which is where my interest lies, I go for these kind of accounts, 'You Can't Win' being a prime example.

These two books, 'Prisoner of Desire' and 'Sad Paradise' don't sustain interest the same way that the Jack Black book does. Prisoner was a bit of a chore to read, to the degree that I wondered if it was a part of a technique, the refusal to stray away from a few things that he kept stuck on. A disturbing and futile account that left me feeling down in the dumps for a couple of days. Sad Paradise is a smoother read. Near the end of Sad Paradise now though and the trajectory doesn't bode well for the young protagonist.

After reading all the bad luck and trouble (mostly self-afflicted) in the books, the writer's demise under the wheels of a car on a dark rainy night seems par for the course.

[Anonymous No.10123534]

Chasm by Nick Land. Not much has happened so far, but the characters are really interesting and the atmosphere is immersive, I'm enjoying it.

[Anonymous No.10123542]

>>10121399
Best part is the play, it legit gave me chills

[Anonymous No.10123554]

>>10116302
>using the word prose twice in a sentence
You’re a pleb and your diction is shit, contemplate killing yourself

[Anonymous No.10123565]

>>10116287
>Jack Vance, The Dying Earth
in retrospect pretty cheesy with it's DnD style storytelling . It's not too bad though, I think I'll finish it.

[Anonymous No.10123586]

>>10118281
The plot of dune is so-so in my opinion. The world building is what kept me in the book series. The series takes a pretty bizarre turn in book 4 (and end of book 3), which in my opinion makes up for the kinda same-y book 2 and 3.

[Anonymous No.10123604]

>>10116287

> Paul Auster, The New-york Trilogy
I'm still at chapter 6. The writing is good, but I kind of feel like I'm missing the point

> Aala-Al-Aswany, The Yacoubian Building
Amazing style, one of the greatest choral story I've ever read

>Frederic Beigbeder, A French Novel
Simply genius.

>and yes i read several books at the same time
>i don't understand myself anymore

[Anonymous No.10123625]

It's a plod

[Anonymous No.10124491]

>>10123625
Do the audiobook and only look for diagrams. It's done well.
>>10116287
Douglas Hurd's autobiography, he is one boring fuck.

[Anonymous No.10124505]

>>10123604
>and yes i read several books at the same time
He said, as if it meant some sort of accomplishment

[Anonymous No.10125254]

Only 100 pages in but I fucking hate it.

[Anonymous No.10125258]

>>10118724
Bad.

[Anonymous No.10125275]

>>10125254
Develop taste.

[Anonymous No.10125280]

>>10125275
>wahhh my dad drank so I need to take 12 pages to write one sentence

[Anonymous No.10126241]

>>10118900
I think you either like the writing style or you don't. I fell in love with it on the first page, it's very intuitive to read and similar to how I structure my thoughts. Your experience may vary.

[Anonymous No.10126242]

>>10123140
Read some more and so far I like it

[Anonymous No.10126247]

>>10120217
Great book

[Anonymous No.10126249]

>>10116287
How to not die
It's ok

[Anonymous No.10126271]

>Chernobyl Prayer by Svetlana Alexievich.
>Really good.
>Gut wrenchingly depressing.
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKhpE-oNoGY

[Anonymous No.10126891]

>>10123554
>demanding great writing for a 4chan post
You are the pseud here

[Anonymous No.10126993]

>>10118521
what a pain. i would kill myself if i had to read that trash again. fucking russians.

[Anonymous No.10127745]

>>10119813
Welp, finished Pedro Páramo. Was super hard for me to follow, not sure if it's due to the translation or because the text is extremely dense in writing style and content. Or maybe I'm dumb. Still an interesting read.
I know almost nothing of Mexico so whatever allegories made were lost on me.

Next up is All the Pretty Horses or Night by Elie Wiesel. Probably the latter.

[Anonymous No.10127875]

The Old Testament. Only read Genesis and in the middle of Exodus.

Exodus is shit compared to Genesis.

[Anonymous No.10128058]

>>10116287
this.

a very easy read. a memoir from berlin in the 30s from a very english perspective. would recommend if you're interested in the cityor period.

[Anonymous No.10128095]

>>10127875
if its your first time reading, try this list:
Genesis*
Exodus*
Joshua*
Judges
1 + 2 Samuel*
Job
Psalms*
Song of Solomon
Isaiah*
Jeremiah
Ezekiel
Daniel
Jonah

Luke
John*
Acts*
Romans
Hebrews
James
Revelation

you'll hit everything literary/plot-relevant, and you can fill in the gaps later. * means its vitally important

[Anonymous No.10128103]

>>10127875
if its your first time reading, try this list:
Genesis*
Exodus*
Joshua*
Judges
1 + 2 Samuel*
Job
Psalms*
Proverbs
Ecclesiastes
Isaiah*
Jeremiah
Ezekiel
Daniel
Jonah

Luke
John*
Acts*
Romans
Hebrews
James
Revelation

you'll hit everything literary/plot-relevant, and you can fill in the gaps later. * means its vitally important

[Anonymous No.10128140]

>>10116287
>what are you reading
"The Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith

>what are your thoughts on it so far
Boring and at the same time deeply sophisticated with enormous detailisation towards the micro and macroeconomics as a whole theorised world. Wouldn't recommend it if you don't have at least some basic knowledge in these subjects, though. After the 400th page it is a pain in the ass for me but I'll finish what I've started, around 100 pages left. But Adam Smith surely knew what he was doing, props to him.

[Anonymous No.10128142]

>>10118508

Candide is fucking great, especially if you read some of the context around why it was written.

[Anonymous No.10128434]

White nights, and its taking me too long
>Nastenka-chan I ll help you!
>narrator-chan.. thank... thank you!
>Nastenka-chan you are so good.. I... I think I could lov-
>narrator-chan its so cool that we are only friends!
I love Dostoyevsky, i have read hia big works but this one is getting cringey

[Anonymous No.10128439]

>>10128103

>makes a granular, detailed list of important/essential bible books
>does not include all four of the gospels as musts and absolutely un-skippable, even and perhaps especially for beginners

I'm not even a Christian but I know that you just made a really shitty list right now.

[Anonymous No.10128526]

>>10128439
you can read those first once youre done. no first-time reader of the bible wants to slog through all four gospels in a row.

[Anonymous No.10128533]

reading 1984 for the first time to teach to my students - never read orwell in high school and only briefly dabbled in his nonfiction. It's aight so far. It's got a wealth of teachable material but fuck if this book isn't basic as shit

[Anonymous No.10128609]

>>10128526

God damn, now I double-know you're a fucking idiot. I mean you've got zero place to go on this. Absolute zip.

Let me help you understand your own stupidity so that for next time, you actually think thoughts before writing words: in order for the dumb thing that you wrote to be true, you were obliged to discount a rather large section of the bible's readership: people who read the thing for honest religious purposes, and people who read the thing out of an interest in the historicity of Jesus, whether they are religious or skeptics. Your brain-dead comment assumes a readership composed only of secular readers reading the bible as literature, /who would get bored by repetitive Jesus stories despite intentionally reading the bi...ble/...? What?

Even when our attention is confined to these secular-curious types, you're still low-functioning, because the immense cultural importance of the gospels in-and-of-itself (and especially the KJV to which I now refer) assures that reading it has some cutural and literary value. Pontius Pilate "washed his hands"? The nativity? "Man shall not live by bread alone"? "Jesus wept"? "The blind leading the blind"? /Are you fucking kidding me/?!?! To read this stuff carries a secularist pleasure all its own, because /now you know where the meme/trope/etc came from/. In addition to, you know, a dramatic story of all fucking things. Yep, no intrinsic literary merit here, boring slog.

So the point is that the gospels are among the most important part of the whole bible for religious, cultural, historical /and literary-meme-reasons/. You fucking dip.

[Anonymous No.10128622]

>>10119337
I'm almost done with it. I'm at the part with the kids playing.

The Venus story, to me, screamed Vietnam for some reason. I was daydreaming about the story set in Vietnam.

[Anonymous No.10128808]

>>10128609
dude said he was reading the old testament specifically, not even the bible. nobody interested in converting to Christianity would just read the old testament. besides, everything you mentioned would be covered by the two gospels i listed + Matthew, and 'by bread alone' doesn't carry any weight beyond face value unless you've read [or cross-reference] Deuteronomy. for the record I meant to asterisk Luke.
>in-and-of-itself
lol. relax.

[Anonymous No.10129416]

>>10128808

This is a bunch of crap sophistry that you are using to pretend to try to defend your extremely stupid posts which have already been blown to smithereens. Feigning calm doesn't make you less wrong. You were and are dumb as fuck not to go MATTHEW* MARK* LUKE* JOHN* in the context of what you wrote, even and especially in the context of the post that you now originally admittedly replied to. You stupid fuck.

[Anonymous No.10130705]

>>10116287
Tombs of Atuan
Don't want to say anything, too burned out right now.

[Anonymous No.10130747]

>>10129416
i can tell from the way you type that you dont have friends

[Anonymous No.10131383]

how the fuck did this middle school story writer win a noble prize

[Anonymous No.10131416]

Pic related. Saw the movie first. So far it's more graphic than the movie, but the impact of certain parts is the same. And that impact feels like a gut punch sometimes.
Doesn't help that the actress playing the lead reminds me a lot of a crush I had

[Anonymous No.10131700]

I'm reading Nescio and he has broken me.

[Anonymous No.10131734]

tess of durbervilles
its ok but tess is fucking annoying all she does is whine about how hard life is because bad stuff happened to her even though she had tons of chances to fix it

[Anonymous No.10132038]

>>10116287
Illuminatus!

Getting noided over the personal synchronicities