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/lit/ - Literature

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15671844 No.15671844 [Reply] [Original]

What are some of the most misread books of all time?

>> No.15671857

>>15671844
Anything by Franz Kafka

>> No.15671860
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15671860

Faggots think it's "muh fascist propaganda" for some reason.

>> No.15671863

How is DQ misread?

>> No.15671888

>>15671863
Didn't Nabokov call it a "cruel and crude old book" in one of his faggot alliterative insults? That misses the point.

>> No.15671900

>>15671844
*ahem* FUCK WINDMILLS

>> No.15671924

>>15671863
A lot of people come out of the book thinking it's about 'dreaming the impossible dream'. I blame the movie for this

>> No.15671926

>>15671860
Considering Spengler proposes a spiritualist view of civilization as opposed to a materialist one, that's not completely wrong. He diagnoses the problem (civilizational exhaustion) but says there's no solution, which is where he breaks from fascist thought (which proposes that the civilization can be renewed, or that the "new civilization" that takes over can be built from the people of the old).

>> No.15671929
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15671929

>authour was inspired to write it after studying Nietzsche's "Will to Power"
>contemporary educators like John Green says that it's about "toxic masculinity"

>> No.15671946

>>15671926
how's that fascist propaganda?

>> No.15671951

>>15671888
Nabokov had shit taste.

>> No.15671960

>>15671924
How can one think that when the end of the book is explicitly DQ realizing how retarded he was?

>> No.15671969

>>15671929
Levi-Strauss works are also between the lines.

Fuck John Green.

>> No.15671970

Anything by that German moustache nigga.

>> No.15671976

Bible

>> No.15671995

>>15671844
nonmeme answer is any religous holy book

>> No.15672013
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15672013

Somehow this was in the western canon for hundreds of years and almost nobody took it seriously as advocating for fascism. Everyone thinks Plato was just being ironic. Or, I guess, they didn't read it

>> No.15672065
File: 838 KB, 1041x1210, The_Catcher_in_the_Rye_(1951,_first_edition_cover).jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
15672065

Both the people saying, "This book sucks because Catcher is a whiny brat!" and the people saying, "Well, he's supposed to be a whiny brat," are wrong.

>“Let me repeat. I have not read all the work of this present generation of writing. I have not had time yet. So I must speak only of the ones I do know. I am thinking now of what I rate the best one, Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, perhaps because this one expresses so completely what I have tried to say. A youth, father to what will—must—someday be a man, more intelligent than some and more sensitive than most, who—he would not even have called it by instinct because he did not know he possessed it because God perhaps had put it there, loved man and wished to be a part of mankind, humanity, who tried to join the human race and failed. To me, his tragedy was not that he was, as he perhaps thought, not tough enough or brave enough or deserving enough to be accepted into humanity. His tragedy was that when he attempted to enter the human race, there was no human race there. There was nothing for him to do save buzz, frantic and inviolate, inside the glass wall of his tumbler, until he either gave up or was himself, by himself, by his own frantic buzzing, destroyed.”
>― William Faulkner

>> No.15672070

>>15671924
this is my exact interpretation of the book
why am i wrong?
i don't think the books was arguing for it though

>> No.15672087

>>15672065
Sounds like "Well, he's supposed to be a whiny brat" is correct according to that commentary.

>> No.15672098

>>15672070
>i
are you a twitternig?

>> No.15672105

>>15672070
The point of the book is conviction in the face of hopelessness. DQ's goals were unattainable and "following his dreams" was retarded. He was never going to be what he thought he was, he was never going to achieve what he thought he could. He was a blissful idiot, yet despite all this, he is admirable because in the face of meaninglessness, hopelessness, and a changing world which he refused to recognize, he stood against all who mocked him and fought for what he believed in. It's about perseverance, but even DQ, in his dying gasps, realizes that this pursuit was futile. He was always a fool. Sometimes the best men are.

>> No.15672135

>>15672098
>kids think not capitalizing letters started on Twitter

>> No.15672154

>>15672135
On, you're just a regular nig. Got it.

>> No.15672158

>>15672154
>>15672098
please fuck off with your off topic shit

>> No.15672174

>>15671844
The Picture of Dorian Gray, I think, seduced many youthful generations to justify a hedonistic lifestyle.

>> No.15672199

>>15672158
suck my dick, faggot.

>> No.15672256

>>15672098
uh?
>>15672105
that view seems very common.

>> No.15672282

>>15672256
>uh?
Twitternig confirmed.

>> No.15672319

the stranger has to be the correct answer

>> No.15672323

>>15671860
Because it is

>> No.15672325

>>15672282
are you obsessed with twitter bro?
where did the kpop stands touched you?

>> No.15672330

>>15672323
it isn't. have you read it?

>> No.15672339

>>15672319
but bro it's so fuckin dope he like doesnt give a fuck about anything

>> No.15672347

>>15672339

No the moral of the story is that you have to give a shit about things or else you'll get executed.

>> No.15672349

>>15672325
I'm obsessed with English being raped beyond recognition by twitternigs and regular nigs.

>> No.15672364

>>15672256
>uh?

get off this board

>> No.15672369

>>15672347
nah it means smoke and fuck and then not care when theres consequences cus it takes their power away

no gods no masters

>> No.15672379

>>15672349
Imagine just self-doxing that you havent read james joyce or a hundred other stylists, on an english literature forum, by broadcasting your opinion that twitter is ruining grammar through not capitalizing some proper nouns, just imagine it

>> No.15672400

>>15672379
>Mah niggerspeech be like James Joyce, yo!
cringe

>> No.15672416

>>15672400
>Brékkek Kékkek Kékkek Kékkek! Kóax Kóax Kóax! Ualu Ualu Ualu! Quaouauh!
cringe

>> No.15672422
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15672422

Everything by Nietzsche and Hegel

>> No.15672563

>>15671924
I fucking hate romanticism so much

>> No.15672686
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15672686

>> No.15672704

>>15672416
Nigs will never get all these references and that's still better than the entire body of African literature.

>> No.15672753

>>15672065
while I was reading that book I had a really Jewish feeling about it, so I looked up the author's ethnicity and SURPRISE! he's a kike.

>> No.15672911

Kafka
Heart of Darkness
The Republic

>> No.15672925

>>15672911
How's Kafka misread?

>> No.15672926

>>15671951
Nabokov was above all a jokester.

>> No.15672929

>>15672154
>>15672199
Cringe

>> No.15672948

>>15672925
It is supposed to be funny.

When Kafka read his stories with his friends he could barely get through it, because they were all laughing so hard.

>> No.15672954

>>15672925

>it's about modern day alienation bro
>it's about his own mental illness bro

no

>> No.15672989

>>15672948
Seriously? I haven't read him yet but I know of his life and his work and I'm planning on reading him within the next week. How is something like the trial supposed to be funny?

>>15672954
Is it not supposed to be about the monotonus hell of bureaucracy mixed with his projection of his shit relationship with his father?

>> No.15672994

>>15671860
That's not misreading. That's looking at the title and not even reading the book.

>> No.15673002
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15673002

>> No.15673008

>>15671844
De Profundis. And not only because Oscar/Bosie OTP, but also cause popular interpretation makes Wilde look like a benign fairy when he was very assertive and could be unpleasant himself.

>> No.15673055

>>15672349
You use twitter?.
That's cringe bro

>> No.15673145

>>15672989
That's what makes it so great. It is all that and so much more and hilarious all the way through. The Trail is his funniest book in my opinion.

Just go in with a sense of humor and you'll get it. Most people read Kafka with a lot of preconceived notions about "kafkaesque horror" and don't actually read what is there. Your research about his life will probably hamper your reading more than help. He uses his life for material and inspiration but to say it is "about" his father is to ignore his genius.

>> No.15673165
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15673165

Pic related has to be in the top ten.
Just look at the covers, it's like the publishers want you to think it's a porno. The fact that so many people seem to think Lolita is a "sexy" book is more disturbing than anything in the book itself.

>> No.15673204

>>15671929
Wait wait wait, they made this book about masculinity? Who the fuck reads it that way? I'm not even terribly fond of LOTF, but isn't it really obviously about social structures, the lack thereof, and the issues of tribal mentalities?

>> No.15673218

>>15673204
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfNiQBXmPw8

>> No.15673231

>>15673165
Vlad was not a pedo per se but definitely a confirmed damage controller. I think he did it for the aestheticism, nothing more complex than that.

>> No.15673261

>>15673165
C

>> No.15673297

>>15671926
so if you're not a positivist progressist and or thinks tradition is important you're a fascist?

>> No.15673328

>>15673218
I thought you were linking me a video essay to call me an idiot until it got to 9 minutes in, and that's when the topic came up. I think the lack of females is just a product of the time, gender segregation was a lot more common in that period, and I think Golding was right - it would have complicated the novel. He's already a bit sketchy with his undressing scene, I think he would have been outright chastised as a pederast if he'd made the novel with girls, because the natural devolution of society would lead to those boys fighting over the affections of the girl anyway. It would've been a completely different story, to veer off into this notion of chivalric opposition to impress the girls. I think to attribute it to 'toxic masculinity' is a significant reach.

>> No.15673538

>>15673165
this, this book is pure false advertisement
i wanted an erotic story with little girls and what i got instead was a fucking essay on the differences between american and european cultures and a sad ending where everyone dies fuck this shit

>> No.15673646

>>15673328
William Golding explicitly stated before that he didn't want females in the novel because the subject of sex would inevitably arise. I don't have a source, but I remember when I was young that was mentioned in an audiobook version.

>> No.15673667

>>15671860
That’s because it’s completely inaccessible to brainlets. You need a fairly high IQ to even begin to understand what he’s saying on a conceptual level, plus since he was basically a human encyclopedia vomiting minutiae onto the pages of the book, you need to be familiar with a very broad range of topics.
Even then, the only person who probably ever understood everything Spengler wrote in this book was Spengler.
That Doesn’t mean it’s not a fucking amazing read with mind blowing ideas in it

>> No.15673706

>>15671946
Its not