/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.12692400]

>kills an arab and shoots his dead corpse for no reason
>lol! shit's absurd!
Holy... So this is the power of French philosophy?

[Anonymous No.12692403]

>>12692400
Thanks for spoilering that shit for me faglord

[Anonymous No.12692418]

>>12692403
Don't worry too much, the arab shooting takes place about halfway into the novel. Now get the hell out of here and go read it before someone spoils the ending for you. It's less than 200 pages long and Matthew Ward's translation has super easy prose. You'll be able to finish it in one sitting.

[Anonymous No.12692432]

>>12692403
>he hasn't read The Stranger
>he is complaining about spoilers from an influential 77 years old novel
You get a pass if this is your first time on /lit/. Welcome, faggot.

[Anonymous No.12692433]

Dropped it 50 pages in, nabokov was right. It's shit

[Anonymous No.12692442]

>>12692432
Miss me with that queer fiction shit desu.

[Anonymous No.12692445]

>>12692400
I wished shooting arabs was more pregnant in modern french thought.

[Anonymous No.12692455]

>>12692433
Nabokov was right about every single opinion he ever had in his life. But why do you think The Stranger is shit?

[Anonymous No.12692494]

>>12692455
I felt that the read was pointless, i could tell what he was going for. Yes, the protagonist feels nothing, life is ABSURD. I still have plenty to read, no use wasting my time on something I felt was useless to me.

[Anonymous No.12692507]

>>12692455
>Nabokov was right about every single opinion he ever had in his life.
He was wrong about Dostoevsky

[Anonymous No.12692517]

>>12692400
is killing an arab by the cure inspired by this shit?

[Anonymous No.12692527]

>>12692517
Are you kidding? Yes, practically every line in that song is a reference to The Stranger.
>I'm the stranger

[Anonymous No.12692537]

>>12692400
I liked it. Especially the part with the old man who beats his dog. They share a sausage together from what I recall

[Anonymous No.12693149]

This got me thinking why do many people like the stranger? Is it because it's a "classic" yet is a very quick read that's easy to understand? Is is easy "normie" intellectual points?

[Anonymous No.12693160]

>>12693149
>because it's a "classic" yet is a very quick read that's easy to understand
Mostly this, as a classic should be

[Anonymous No.12693162]

>>12693149
It's a short, easy, entertaining read. It reads "like" a french black and white movie in which the protagonist smokes cigarettes and talks about the meaning of life. But at least in the case of The Stranger, the protagonist is actually entertaining and he does something unexpected.

[Anonymous No.12693266]

What is absurdism and what are some more examples of absurdist novels?

[Anonymous No.12693275]

[SUNLIGHT INTENSIFIES]

[Anonymous No.12693893]

>>12692400
Go read Sartre’s work instead, it’s much better.

[Anonymous No.12693896]

>>12692400
pretty retarded desu, there’s nothing absurd about shooting Arabs

[Anonymous No.12694014]

Camus is a hack

>>12693893
I read nausea and it felt like a waste of time. I don’t think frenchies can into writing

[Anonymous No.12694393]

>>12694014
>I don’t think frenchies can into writing
SACREBLEU

[Anonymous No.12695489]

*raises paw*
I thought it was cool when he spent all his time thinking about being home and how he remembered more and more details as he did.

[Anonymous No.12695497]

>>12692507
>From this point of view Dostoyevsky is not a great writer, but a rather mediocre one - with flashes of excellent humor, but, alas, with wastelands of literary platitudes in between.

[Anonymous No.12695511]

>>12692400
desu yeah that book is a bit meh
I don't understand how it came to be regarded as a classic. Usually classics are at least good if not great.

[Anonymous No.12695548]

>im mesuit
wtf?

[Anonymous No.12695590]

>>12695497
He's right you know.

[Anonymous No.12695593]

La Peste is better desu

[Anonymous No.12695600]

>>12695590
t. Nabokov's ghost

[Anonymous No.12695690]

>>12692400
>>12695511
its not a good novel but worth reading for the intro and the arab shooting scene alone. wonder why camus described anomie (which we all suffer in contemporary society) so well but resorted to saying that we must just embrace the situation. Dostoyevesky anticipated this through describing the death row prisoner who, while even being lead to the hangman's noose, remains foolishly optimistic that somehow his situation is ok because theres at least 20 houses to pass before he reaches the hanging

[Anonymous No.12696032]

>>12695690
Anon, in which book did Dostoyevsky write about the death row inmate being optimistic? It's very familiar to me, this has been nagging me, I've read tbk, c&p and notes. Is it from one of those?

[Anonymous No.12696284]

[Anonymous No.12696287]

>>12692400
FUCK sake dont you understand its too fucking hot thats why you pop 3 extra bullets into the shit skin just in case

[Anonymous No.12696868]

>>12695497
As I said, he was wrong about Dostoevsky.
>>12695590
Piss off, ghost.

[Anonymous No.12696877]

>>12696868
>he was wrong about Dostoevsky.
In what way?

[Anonymous No.12696885]

>>12695690
"just embrace the situation" is kind of the opposite of Camus.

[Anonymous No.12696896]

>>12696877
Dostoevsky was an excellent writer, not a mediocre one.

[Anonymous No.12696901]

>>12693266
Absurdism is an offshoot of existentialism (Camus claimed it was completely different) which was basically invented by Camus. It has a lot to do with the agony of choice, and absurdity of choice especially in situations where options are profoundly limited. Sometimes Kafka or Beckett's work gets described as "absurd" or "absurdist" but it's difficult to tell if this refers to Camus' idea of absurdism. In particular, Waiting for Godot gets called an absurdist play a lot.

[Anonymous No.12696907]

>>12692400
>i missed the point

>>12693149
supposedly camus books are for different parts of your life. an old man cant appreciate the stranger but can appreciate The Fall

[Anonymous No.12696908]

>>12696896
he was an excellent writer for a great number of mediocre people, since most people are mediocre

[Anonymous No.12696912]

>>12693266
It's just existentialism but instead of calling the world nihilistic Camus called it absurd and there's no place for a leap of faith, nor hope, nor expectations because they are philosophical suicide. He never really explains satisfactorily what exactly is a philosophical suicide but he needed to differentiate himself from other existentialists so he would say their ideas were philosophical suicide.

[Anonymous No.12696918]

>>12692400
Is the The plague better than The stranger?

[Anonymous No.12696929]

>>12696918
If you're interested in human suffering and how to deal with it, then yes.

[Anonymous No.12696938]

>>12696908
He was also an excellent writer for a great number of excellent people. James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Knut Hamsum, William Faulkner, Friedrich Nietzsche, Akira Kurosawa and other greats loved him.

[Anonymous No.12696967]

>>12696912
It seems to me that a philosophical suicide is one where you accept an answer you're unsure of just so you can stop asking difficult, paralyzing questions. The choice between nihilism, where you're alone in an empty meaningless world, and religious faith, where a benevolent cares about you, is an absurd choice. We should be able to exist in the ambiguous space, and live with unanswerable questions if we really can't answer them.

[Anonymous No.12696973]

>>12696901
Camus liked Kafka but saw him as a religious writer and therefor not an absurdist.

[Anonymous No.12696999]

>>12696973
True. However, he believed that The Trial was an absurdist novel.

[Anonymous No.12697016]

>>12692433
> tfw cant enjoy other writers cuz Nabokov is so much better

[Anonymous No.12697187]

>>12696908
>being this much of an edgelord

[Anonymous No.12697341]

>>12696938
>James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Knut Hamsum, William Faulkner, Friedrich Nietzsche, Akira Kurosawa
They loved Dostoyevsky? I would love some citations from them about them loving him
>>12697187
life's edgy

[Anonymous No.12697415]

all dem joos shoot alot of arabs but never go to gaol, how absurd is dat?

[Anonymous No.12697458]

>>12697341
Joyce, Kafka, Hamsun, Nietzsche (he initially loved Dostoevsky, but eventually turned against him):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyodor_Dostoevsky#Reception_and_influence
>James Joyce praised Dostoevsky's prose: "... he is the man more than any other who has created modern prose, and intensified it to its present-day pitch. It was his explosive power which shattered the Victorian novel with its simpering maidens and ordered commonplaces; books which were without imagination or violence."
>Franz Kafka called Dostoevsky his "blood-relative"[160] and was heavily influenced by his works, particularly The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment, both of which profoundly influenced The Trial.
>Knut Hamsun wrote that "no one has analyzed the complicated human structure as Dostoyevsky. His psychologic sense is overwhelming and visionary."
>Friedrich Nietzsche at one point called Dostoevsky "the only psychologist ... from whom I had something to learn; he ranks among the most beautiful strokes of fortune in my life", although the mature Nietzsche later turned against Dostoevsky likening him to Jesus and calling him decadent.

Faulkner:
https://www.rbth.com/arts/328152-5-western-writers-influenced-by-dostoyevsky
>The American novelist mentioned the Russian writer as one of his main literary inspirations, alongside the Bible and Shakespeare. The Brothers Karamazov influenced him most of all, and he reread it frequently. He even wrote to poet Hart Crane that American literature has nothing similar to this novel.

As for Kurosawa, he adapted two of Dostoevsky's works (The Idiot, Humiliated and Insulted) to the big screen. Also:
https://bookriot.com/2014/05/06/read-love-akira-kurosawa/
>Much of Kurosawa’s work has been influenced by Fyodor Dostoevsky, notably one of his favorite authors.

If you want more pro-Dostoevsky ammunition, read the entire "Reception and influence" part of his wikipedia page.

[Anonymous No.12697485]

Sadly enough my entire AP lit class favored this book over Crime and Punishment, Pride and Prejudice, and Paradise Lost. My heart.

[Anonymous No.12697739]

>>12692400
That's not what "absurd" means.

[Anonymous No.12697751]

>50+ pages of him describing his amazing, passionate relationship with a beautiful woman with lots of sex scenes

[Anonymous No.12697783]

>>12692400
>camus was ethnically Arab
>centerpiece of book involves needlessly killing Arab
What did he mean by this? Was Camus the Arab all along?

[Anonymous No.12697797]

naw matey it's absurd because he's put to death just because he didn't cry at his mummy's funeral

[Anonymous No.12697832]

>>12697797
This. I can't believe it took this long for someone to point out the true meaning of the novel. Most of the case against Meursault is built around him showing very little emotion at his mother's funeral. The prosecutor spends more time talking about the funeral than the shooting. That's the absurdity.

[Mires No.12697860]

>>12697458
based

[Anonymous No.12697866]

>>12697783
Maybe the true Arab is the Camus we made along the way.

[Anonymous No.12697879]

>>12692400
Retard

[Anonymous No.12697932]

>>12696032
tbk