/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.17424392]

The first month of 2021 is nearly over. What books have you read so far?

For me, I've only read:
>The True Believer - Hoffer

[Anonymous No.17424403]

Camus - the Stranger
Sartre - Nausea
currently reading Mann - Buddenbrooks

Not doing amazing but I think I can do 35 books this year

[Anonymous No.17424411]

Uhhhhh does reading all of Berserk count ?

[Anonymous No.17424417]

The first Dune book, finally got around to read it

[Anonymous No.17424418]

>>17424411
Yes

[Anonymous No.17424431]

I'm about to finish Thirteen Reasons Why in the next few nights and I'm so happy that it's ending. She just seems too overreacting and sensitive. And Clay's role also is pretty much redundant in all of this...

[Anonymous No.17424449]

>>17424392
Probably none, but I definitely started around 20-30.

[Anonymous No.17424450]

I carefully considered the matter and then decided not to read a book.

[Anonymous No.17424451]

>>17424392
Ara ara

[Anonymous No.17424452]

Nick Land - Fanged Noumena (got totally filtered)
Houellebecq - Serotonin
A. Moster - Wir leben hier, seid wir geboren sind (beautiful, too bad it has not been translated to English yet)
Evola - Ride the tiger
Santacroce - Fluo
Dostoevsky - Crime and Punishment
Donna Haraway - Chthulucene (cringe)
Sade - 120 Days of Sodom
Houellebecq - Submission
Klossowski - Sade my neighbor

Yes, I'm unemployed, what gave it away?

[Anonymous No.17424454]

>>17424449
Or maybe 3 or 4.

[Anonymous No.17424514]

>>17424392
Blood meridian
And then there were none
True grit
I'm hoping to get city of thieves finished by the end of today.

[Anonymous No.17424532]

Murder in the Mews, The Complete Miss Marple Collection - Agatha Christie
Belphegor - Arthur Bernede
Songs of Maldoror - Comte de Lautreamont

It would have been more, but I'm kind of low on motivation this month. On the other hand I'm very motivated to clean and organize, so I guess it's some kind of start of new year syndrome.

[Anonymous No.17424554]

>>17424392
>Life Itself - Robert Rosen
Interesting, heterodox take on the broad differences between bio and physical sciences. Formulated in the language of Category theory but touches heavily on physics, philosophy, and computability theory
>Kokoro - Natusmi Soseki
good, very quick, depressing novel. Interesting slice of japanese life. good demonstration of intersubjectivity
>Mason & Dixon - Thomas Pynchon
About 500 pages in, and a re-read from 3 years ago. Better in some parts than I remember, worse in others. definitely more enjoyable as I have a much broader knowledge base than I did the first time

[Anonymous No.17424711]

>>17424411
No. Might as well count watching all seasons of Friends

[Anonymous No.17424861]

The Big Sleep and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

[Anonymous No.17424976]

>>17424392
the Marcionite Bible

[Anonymous No.17424981]

Catch-22
The Millionaire Next Door
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
The Grapes of Wrath
The Crying of Lot 49

[Anonymous No.17424995]

The Indiana Torture Slaying
Red Dragon
Cari Mora
The Silence of the Lambs
Hannibal
Hannibal Rising
On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason

[Anonymous No.17425037]

Already read:
>The Cheese and the Worms by Carlos Ginzburg
>Mr. Palomar by Italo Calvino
>Selected Poems and Prose of Paul Celan
Plan to read/started but didn't finish:
>I Am a Cat by Natsume Sōseki
>What is Property? by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
>Dreamers of Decadence: Symbolist Painters of the 1890s by Philippe Jullian

[Anonymous No.17425045]

On Television
Consumer Society
Industrial Society and its Future
Burnout Society
Marxism - Philosophy and Economics

[Anonymous No.17425086]

>>17424392
Games People Play - Eric Berne

[Anonymous No.17425099]

>>17425045
Is that your first Byung-Chul Han book?

[Anonymous No.17425146]

>>17424392
Finished political theology by Carl Schmitt. almost done the culture of narcissism by Christopher Lasch

[Anonymous No.17425151]

>>17425045
looks like someone is getting blindpilled
planning on doing so to after my ereader ships

[Anonymous No.17425153]

>Rabelais - Complete Works
began in December, The five books of Gargantua and Pantagruel are amongst the kinoest things I've read, the rest (mostly letters) is between boring for the average reader and charming
>Flaubert - Three tales
Once again Flaubert's genius is very much apparent is these tales. His mastery of the language is both very obvious and yet absolutely discreet, unless he wants you to notice it. The tales themselves cover his whole range, from the bland realism to the near fantastic. Would recommend.
>Bataille - Blue of the noon
Very disappointed by this. The writing is very heavy-handed (Bataille recognised it himself and did not want to publish it at first), reads like a bad existentialist novel. The opening scene is sadly the best thing in it. Overall still pleasing to read and quite short. Some anons reassured me that his other works were better.
>Bobin - Prisonnier au berceau
Beautiful. It's more akin to a poetical autobiography than to a novel, it's pretty unclassifiable. Christian Bobin lives and always lived in Le Creuzot, a very shitty ancient industrial town in the middle of nowhere. This book focuses on how he found beauty in this life, the title "prisoner at birth" seems very pessimistic but it is because Bobin finds beauty and love despite all the shitty things. He has a very childish sense of wonder and a very personal conception of Christianity. He talks about the exploration of Le Creuzot, Dickinson, his childhood, his crazy grandma, his faith, the workers, etc. I recommend it! I don't think it was translated into English but it's short and easy to read if you can speak a little French.
>Gracq - La Littérature à l'estomac
A short lampoon about the state of literature in post-war France. Delightful style as always with Gracq, but a mean one for once. He btfos Sartre and the other public intellectuals, the empty political literature, the readers and critics who have opinions but no tastes of their own, the inanity of literary discussions, the literary prizes who are nothing but machine to make the news... And he still has time to talk about his love for literature, what it should be, Jünger, Breton, all in a very sensitive and poetical manner. Coherently, Gracq refused the prix Goncourt who was awarded to him next year for The Opposing shore.

1/2

[Anonymous No.17425157]

>>17424711
What if I read the transcript of all friends seasons ?

[Anonymous No.17425165]

Goethe - Faust
Buzzati - barnabo of the mountains
Descartes - Meditations and the discourse
The power of habit (don't judge me)
Ishiguro - an artist of a floating world

I currently reading crime and punishment

[Anonymous No.17425171]

>Barbey d'Aurevilly - Les Diaboliques
Six decadent short stories very much centred around the twilight of nobility in 19th century France . At first I was kind of disappointed because it seemed pretty dull, but then it hit me: his style his perfect. He captures the spirit of the French discussion and badinage perfectly. In a sense he is the anti-Borges, his short-stories are quite long and always have time for what seems to be inessential. They are always constructed around a pivot which is lost in plenty of details, this in turn allows him to make us believe the most unbelievable situations. The cruelty, and humour, he is capable of is very reminiscent of Villiers de L'Isle-Adam. Like Flaubert, he's a man who hides his genius (a little less though, he likes to show he's capable of constructing quite complicated sentences - but that's not where his true talent lies). The book only goes better as it goes and I recommend it. The casual misanthropy (read misogyny) is quite fun too.
>Girard - Things hidden since the foundation of the world
I enjoyed this greatly. Not what I expected but really interesting, though I don't feel able to assess the truth of many of his statements since I'm no ethnographer. Very nice view of Christianity. He often btfos psychology, marxism, Nietzsche, etc. It's funny.
>Claudel - Cinq grandes odes / Cantate à trois voix
Cinq grandes odes: Very peculiar poetry with unconventional verses (some are two-words long and other take several lines), very long poems with a beautiful imagery. Beautiful coincidence between Claudel's faith and passion about life (and women). Not the greatest poet I ever read, but very good nonetheless. Cantate à trois voix: also very peculiar and long, structured as a dialogue between three characters with very short replicas and long poems in between. Not gonna lie, it went a little bit over my head, some parts are really good, others are kind of meh. Probably going to reread it later this year.

Currently reading:
>some collected poetry by Coleridge
pretty disappointing so far, and I've already read his "masterpieces", they're fun to read but the poetry itself is often not there I find
>Bataille - Story of the eye / Mme Edwarda / The dead

Currently reading on the long term (meaning I read a little bit from it in between other books)
>Schwob - Complete Works
>Dickinson - Complete poetry
Both are great.

2/2

[Anonymous No.17425217]

is 6 books a month good enough? they were 300-500 pages

[Anonymous No.17425267]

>>17425157
Is there such a thing? Asking for friends.

[Anonymous No.17425298]

>>17425217
Good enough for what? Basking in /lit/'s approval?

[Anonymous No.17425321]

>>17425153
>>17425171
I'm trying to get more into poetry myself this year. Been really enjoying the works of James Wright, Ron Padgett, and Aram Saroyan. Got any suggestion poetanon?

[Anonymous No.17425322]

>>17425298
nah i just want to know if i can catch up with others on this board, i'm not looking for approval i just want to learn at a semi-efficent pace.

[Anonymous No.17425604]

Only 3 finished but making good progress on a few more:
>Merchant of Venice
>Mother Night
>The Courage to Be Disliked
Then chugging through Letters on Ethics by Seneca, and halfway through Invisible Man and East of Eden. I'm trying to get into reading after not doing it consistently for the past few years since college, so I've just been letting myself switch between things to keep interest up. In December I read
>Lolita
>We
>Cat's Cradle
>The Trial
>Too Loud a Solitude
>Sirens of Titan
It's been pretty enjoyable reading more. I definitely prefer shorter works that I can get through in 1-2 sittings, but trying to mix in longer stuff to build up my attention span. I targeted 24 books for 2021 but that's not meant to be an ambitious goal, I'll be able to hit it easily as long as I am consistent -- which is the goal.

[Anonymous No.17425611]

>>17424417
what's it called?

[Tostapav No.17425616]

1984

[Anonymous No.17425622]

>>17424452
That's impressive, keep it up. or actually maybe better to get a job

[Anonymous No.17425627]

Tigana, and I'm about half way through The Fate of Africa

[Anonymous No.17425628]

>>17424392
>Journey to the End of the Night
>Cuentos de Amor, de Locura y de Muerte
>Rayuela (rn)

Looking good so far

[Anonymous No.17425657]

>>17424392
so far only the fragments of aeschylus but I'm about to start the achilleid

[Anonymous No.17425731]

>>17424392
Animal Farm, short and classic

[Anonymous No.17425749]

>>17425321
I'm French so I probably won't have the best recommandations for anglo poetry. But I like WB Yeats a lot and I think his work is easy to approach. The first anglo poet I read and appreciated is EE Cummings, you might want to check it out, he has very nice love poems.

[Anonymous No.17426615]

bump

[Anonymous No.17426687]

One chapter away from finished Opus Majus by Roger Bacon

[Anonymous No.17426760]

The Dark Tower - CS Lewis
The Colorado Kid - Stephen King
Salems' Lot - Stephen King
Carrie - Stephen King
The Death of Ivan Ilyich - Leo Tolstoy
Greek Myths - Nathaniel Hawthorne
Around the World in 80 Days - Jules Verne
and got through some Poe, Gibson short stories

[Anonymous No.17426927]

I read the BioShock novel

[Anonymous No.17426947]

>>17424392
We're doing a poll for this over here lads:
>>17425404

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17426954]

List of books and essays and articles read this year


>William kumbier’s essay on William Blake’s meter=30 pages

Was a pretty fascinating read, at random I’ll read Blake and don’t record it here as it isn’t really dedicated time, I ought to read more essays on Blake

>70 pages of basics on the brains anatomy

Will likely read another basic text on the brain later


>Hend Hamed Ezzeldin’s 7 page analysis of the relation of Keats to Sufism

A bit of a weak argument but I see where he’s coming from and the proximity of the aesthetic


>The conference of the birds 189 pages

Absolutely beautiful, demonstrates the Sufi mystical ideal in a neat and relatively short poetic allegory and series of tales, I also read a verse translation of the same book but found it lacking compared to the prose version.

>227 page book about an English couple

Absolute trash

>224 page anthology of George Macdonald by Lewis carrol

Fascinating little insights from the sermons of Macdonald and the ideas of Carroll

>121 page comparison of Milton and boehme with history of romanticism and various other related subjects

Fun read but didn’t really tell me anything I didn’t already know, the relationship is a stretch.

>16 page essay on Husserl’s conception of time

Was written by yuk hui I believe, a fun little read about the relationship of protension and pretension in Husserlian phenomenology

>Goethe’s green serpent and the beautiful lily+two commentaries on it (roughly 60 pages? )

Cont

[Anonymous No.17426964]

>>17424392
Lairs poker, cicero, goergics, de anima

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17426966]

>>17426954
Gold standard for what an allegorical fairy tale could do, absolutely lovely, a brief Analysis of the aspects (I disagree with Schopenhauer that the tale is meaningless.)

Green serpent=normative five-senses of human perception, the life of the flesh and soul which is primarily characterized by Hunger (until wisdom enters her)

Lily=the perception and life of the Spirit and of those spiritual things hidden from the view of man, think the world of the forms and above

Old man=Reason

Youth=the Initiate

Mops=other initiates as reflections of the self

His wife=memory and by extension crystallized knowledge, thus science

The old man’s home covered in gold=The wisdom which dwells in nature

The fiery will’o’wisps=scientists and natural philosophers

The river=lowly bestial flesh based passion, desire and broadly speaking Babylon which acts as the primary division between man and the higher life/Lily

The giant=nature in its crude forces and nature, seen as a wild chaos

The giant’s shadow which may act as a bridge=atavistic resurgence


Bridges=the serpent bridge in morning would be opportune moments of spiritual ecstasy and harmony when things come together to induce a spiritual state, the shadow bridge of the giant is however the analysis in introspection of the crude base matter of the world as it reflects in man, which is to say, it is attaining the base matter and through contemplation turning it into the stone (see bonaventure )


Gold=wisdom and the intellect

Silver=beauty and appearance

Brass=power and Will

Fourth king of various admixed nature= Nebuchadnezzar reference but specifically referencing the inharmonious nature that the parts and powers of the soul have in relation to the world

Blackening and shrinking hand=science used by Babylon becoming purely material creature, its spiritual faculties becoming invisible

Ferryman=the unconscious and hidden capacities of the self, also various liminal spiritual states personified as the psychopomp

Cont

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17426995]

>>17426966
The three onions and so forth=human cultivation in and through normative senses, virtue, work, effort, which are needed to overcome the passions and waves, the Greyhound which overcomes the she-wolf

Maidens of the Lily=the spiritual benefits of the higher life, such as Siddhis, spiritual visions, fruits of the spirit, all of which are inferior to the relationship between the adept and the lily but beautify the relationship by their existence


The Hawk=the ascending Burning passion and drive of the adept for the Lily(which is why the old man says the hawk has conducted me) only by the Love towards God can the reason become the great guide of all of these members

The canary=the descending peaceful and gentle force of the Holy Spirit, which is to say, the presence of the Lily hidden within the realm of the green serpent

Self sacrifice of the green serpent=life-experience sacrificing its independent nature and revealing itself to be the bridge to god, the experience is ensouled with the higher life, the forms, thus the body of the serpent becomes jewels

Jewels=the reflection of god in nature, the allegory of indra’s net through perception

The silver Altar=the appearance within perception of the holy

>The Crimson Weaver by R. Murray Gilchrist 14 pages

A beautiful and odd little story, while the story itself isn’t the oddest thing, a man, his master and the influence/power of a vampiric seeming woman who’s deadly attraction absorbs both, is relatively tame, the power in it is the prose style is very unique and the modifications of the tale have demonic strangeness, the prose style is highly sensuous and ornate but not intending to be witty, it speaks of the woman as creating a dress out of the blood and flesh of the men she sleeps with, by grinding and tearing at them, ends with the story teller having his heart’s red thread being dragged to the woman. Great blend of decadent and weird fiction

>35ish pages of Vernon Watkins (I read more but I forgot I was counting so I started my count at a latter time)

Reminds me at times of Hopkins and yeats and maybe a bit of Dylan Thomas, but his poetry is quieter, tamer, very welsh but fascinating. I’m particularly fond of his autumn song

Cont

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17427004]

>>17426995
>The collected poems of Stenbock 209 pages

Mixed feelings, a decadent author, a good writer, simplistic in style and strange in content which I enjoy, but the over excessive fixation with love and romance is boring and tiring, it’s a old theme and largely a waste of his sensuous and ornate skill. The most fascinating and strangest of his poems is the three sisters, blending of death imagery, fates, repetition and so forth elevated it to his best in my opinion.

>Itinerarium Mentis in Deum of St Bonaventure: 42 pages

Re-read it due to re-reading dante, figured it would be helpful for some anons if I re-read it and then wrote down a condensed overview of the major points, I’ll post That here.

Spiritual ascent according to bonaventure

The soul has 6 faculties of differing levels and capacities, the deeper ones producing/fathering the lower levels, the deeper levels being more simplistic in composition whereas the more sensual they become the more complex. The greater the simplicity allows for the maximization of the kind of knowledge employed in each level.

These six faculties are the senses, the imagination, Reason, intellect, intelligence and the height of intelligence is Synderesis, which is to say, the apprehension of first principles such as identity, non-excluded middle and other such basic aspects of Being.

He believes that the Light of Synderesis is the vision of the Nonduality of Being-in-itself with the pure Being of God, thus reaching this origin point allows for contemplation of Godhead without obscurity.

First one uses the senses to judge various material aspects such as extension and one is to deduce harmony among matter and a common origin for matter through the senses.

Then imagination aided by faith is to consider the origin of the sensual within the divine, within the divine mind and so forth.

Then one is to rationally divide the nature of the sensual world into its parts and relations, this deduction process leads one to understanding the transcendental root of being of which one cannot experience but is wonderfully viewed as if an outsider looking in.

Bonaventure divides spiritual ascent into three phases, outside, inside and Above. The outside world first being used and then becoming like a mirror until the analysis of nature/phenomena breaks down in the rationality phase and the structure/body of reason within oneself becomes the target of analysis.

Cont

[Anonymous No.17427005]

The art of war - Sun Tzu
Dracula - Stoker
Dr Jekyll and Mr.Hyde - Stevenson
Demons - Dostoevsky

Currently reading The brothers Karamazov

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17427015]

>>17427004
This interior cells of the reason would be referred to as the intellect which is seen to be the capacity of judgments to decide between various things, the potential to judge is understood to be rooted in deciding what is closer to pure being, what is closer to the best and the eternal.

For this reason Bonaventure believes the intelligence and judgments roots in the memory.

The memory is the root of man’s intelligence and being and is understood to Bonaventure to also be made up of all phenomenological pretension and protension, thus is connected in a Trinitarian fashion to the nature of time and eternity itself.

This memory receives its imprint, its original knowledge from the image of God in man which is the height of the soul/intellect itself, from which the spark of Synderesis/knowledge of being is attained, or to say it another way, Being is and knows itself perfectly in accordance with the laws and structures which govern it, its simplistic composition, and memory is the existence in time of the Pure Being

Thus by such a contemplation reached through worship and earnest contemplation one can link this world, being and the temporal with the eternal divinity of God through contemplation of the image of god ensouled within us, Christ is the key in this because the contemplative powers and the various powers of the mind/soul are weakened due to the fall and our intoxications with petty life and so forth, furthermore the distance of God from us makes it difficult. Christ however acts as a ladder which infuses the sensuous world through his life and his teaching with divine lights/sparks which can be used as the base of the contemplation, this is especially necessary since sense perceptions are bound by time and potentiality and thus are admixed with non being, therefore lacking perfection. However christ as a ultimate paradoxical creature/creator exists both in time and the eternal.

Bonaventure further elaborates there are two methods which intersect, the above method which after it is completed one then marvels and contemplates the Christ as person, personality, somehow existent in time while being this and the harmony of these natures, if however one uses the other cherub first, one contemplates in love the humanity and life of Jesus and this blossoms into contemplation of how this is connected to the eternity of god. This double tension reconciling would be the ultimate point which is only completed once in heaven.

Cont

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17427021]

>>17427015
194 pages of Gilchrist’s stone dragon

Absolutely fascinating work, I would be lying if I said every tale in it was of equal value, this book blends Victorian/gothic and decadent and weird fiction into a odd little ghost-story-esque aesthetic, if pressed can use a highly antiquarian Mr James-esque style. What strikes me beyond this odd admixture is how many subtle references to various religious and occult and poetic works is in the little book, some of which are subtle enough to be utterly ignored. Particular favorites were the Witch in-grain, the Return and the basilisk, once again over reliance on vague romance to carry the plot thread but this is forgiven by his fascinating word usage, the excessively exuberant prose tied to the decadently strange themes are very entertaining.

54 pages of montague summer’s book on European werewolf mythology

Haven’t finished the book but I’m enjoying it, I plan to complete it, he writes in a style reminiscent of Robert Burton who he has quoted multiple times already so I assume he has taken a lot of influence from his anatomy of melancholy (as he should, it’s a great work) the translator of the Malleus Maleficarum largely marries Burton’s style to the same style employed in the aforementioned text, the lore and information is quite fascinating so far

the dream of gerontius by cardinal Newman (didn’t count the page numbers)

I’ve re-read this poem at least 5-7 times, never fails to bring me tears, a soft and gentle movement from a sick man who becomes a soul waiting judgment before God’s throne and in the presence of God’s glory he himself begs to be taken away and placed into the waters until he is worthy to seek god’s face with purity in his heart.

Also read a couple other essays online and various short prose and verse but didn’t count them as it wasn’t a part of me sitting down for more serious analysis.

[Anonymous No.17427081]

>>17424392
Finally managed to finish Faust. It was amazing experience, unique in lots of ways.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17427089]

>>17425153
Based taste, also if we count works we finished in December add Hollander’s divine comedy to my list.
>>17424403
How did you feel about what you’ve read?

>>17424452
>Houellebecq
Tell me what you think of him, is he really worth it?
>>17424532
Ever read the golem? Might be something you’re into.

>>17425604
I’m just gonna say it, I don’t think nabokov has the over-whelming prose skill (from what I’ve read in pale fire and Lolita and bits of ada) that people worship him for. The style he wants is clearly done better in Joyce and some parts of lolita feel like schlock and yeah he can get away with it due to claiming irony or it’s in character. “Scepter of my passion” comes to mind, also the poem in pale fire is mid tier and I genuinely believe he was trying his best there. What do you think?

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17427096]

>>17427081
Both parts? If so, how’d you feel about the maelstrom that is part 2?

[Anonymous No.17427132]

So far I’ve read: Players, End Zone (top tier DeLillo), Sabbath’s Theater, American Pastoral, Kafka on the Shore (worthless slop), The Lost Scrapbook which is fucking incredible, The Ice Shirt which was also really great, The Rainbow Stories, and I’m currently about 400 pages into Europe Central.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17427192]

>>17426995
Watkin’s autumn song for any who are interested.

[Anonymous No.17427212]

>>17427096
Yep, both of them, though i was surprised when found out that school programs usually cover only first one. In short that was very strange, simultaneously gorgeous and exhausting. I liked what images i've created while reading this and what Goethe was trying to tell through the plot, but because of my lack of knowledge of Greek myths it was a bit stressful. I'm glad i read it anyway.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17427243]

>>17427212
Nice. I haven’t read Faust in years so I’m planning on a re-read at some point this year with a good annotated copy. Which translation did you read? While I’ve not read it I’m considering using that little oddity, that “Coleridge” translation. But idunno, what do you recommend? I’m definitely going to compare multiple translations prior to jumping in this time.

[Anonymous No.17427277]

>>17424392
picrel

[Anonymous No.17427279]

>>17427243
The thing is, i'm russian, and i've read russian translation. If u're for some reason interested, i'll tell you translator's name.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17427292]

>>17427279
Ah, can’t really say that’d help me but say the names anyways, maybe some Russian anon will look through the archives for a good translation of Faust, you never know.

[Brainlet No.17427294]

Here's January:

A Portrait of the Artist... - James Joyce
No Longer Human - Osamu Dazai
Pnin - Vladimir Nabokov
Kitchen - Banana Yoshimoto
Inferno - Dante
Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakami

Ended up reading more than I thought I would, so I'm ahead of schedule for my goal this year. Gonna read some heavier stuff next. I'm open for recs

[Anonymous No.17427296]

>>17425322
depends on what youre reading

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17427312]

>>17427294
Is Dazai a meme or actually good In your opinion?

How did you like Joyce?

How’s pnin stack up against the other works of nabokov you’ve read?

Why just inferno? Is it because you didn’t start The other two or because you think the other two aren’t worth reading? If so, let me just say that purgatorio and paradiso are both superior to inferno.

[Anonymous No.17427313]

>>17427081
Oh, and i've also read Ru Murakami's War Begins Beyond the Sea. Short, sweet, full of gore Palanik's vibes.

[Anonymous No.17427347]

>>17425611
Dune

[pip No.17427361]

januartyy - dune
february - lotr

[Brainlet No.17427379]

>>17427312
>Is Dazai a meme or actually good In your opinion?
He's definitely somewhat an embodiment of "my diary desu" but he wasn't horrible. That being said, not as good as I hoped he'd be. Still gonna read The Setting Sun though.
>How did you like Joyce?
I struggled with Joyce in the past, and was happy to make it through this time. Some parts were sublime, but others were just horribly boring to me. Probably getting filtered but whatever. Will probably try to read Dubliners soon.
>How’s pnin stack up against the other works of nabokov you’ve read?
Pnin was a beautiful story about a ridiculous man, and in my opinion was almost as good as Lolita. Still on my shelf are Pale Fire and Invitation to a Beheading.
>Why just inferno? Is it because you didn’t start The other two or because you think the other two aren’t worth reading? If so, let me just say that purgatorio and paradiso are both superior to inferno.
Which one would to recommend I read first? I chose inferno just because it seemed to be the one most alluded to in modern culture

[Anonymous No.17427388]

>>17427292
In that case, Фaycт п. Хoлoдoвcкoгo

[Anonymous No.17427406]

>>17427347
Oh.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17427410]

>>17427379
I mean, it’s a linear book. The divine comedy begins with the inferno, then you follow him along his purification in purgatorio then he enters heaven in paradiso. So read in that order. Perhaps pick up the Hollander or another scholarly translation that is filled with annotations since there’s whole bunch of context you’re likely to miss.

The language and imagery in paradiso is superior to that within purgatorio, which is superior to that within inferno, but they build on each other and should be read within the linear order that Dante intended. Some translations come with illustrations, those are often fun.

[Brainlet No.17427425]

>>17427410
To be quite honest, I never knew Inferno came first, but that works out quite well so I'm happy. Definitely need the annotations, my edition of Inferno had a shit ton of footnotes and idk what I would've done without them.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17427436]

>>17427425
Oh you definitely ought to read all of the introduction and footnotes your translation has, in my opinion the payoff for paradiso and the climax of purgatorio is 100% worth it

[Anonymous No.17427695]

Doing fairly well so far, certainly better than last January
Books read :
Atomic habits - James clear
Black Sabbath's master of reality (33 1/3 series) - John darnielle
Woodcutters - Thomas Bernhard
The Loser - Thomas Bernhard
The Diary of a Madman, The Government Inspector and Selected Stories - Nikolay Gogol

Out of what I read this month the collection of stories by Gogol is my favorite which I truly savoured until I finally forced myself to read the last story so I could move on to other books. Woodcutters was also incredible though The Loser was somewhat disappointing in comparison. John darnielles book / entry to the 33 1/3 series took me by surprise and recommended it to a few friends who've also enjoyed it, if you're a fan of his music or are looking for a quick read (100 pages or so) you should check it out.
Finally Atomic habits which was the first book I read this year but I feel almost totally indifferent to it.

[Anonymous No.17427965]

Dune Messiah, Children Of Dune, and half of God-Emperor Of Dune.

[pip No.17427986]

[Anonymous No.17428320]

I read Dubliners

[Anonymous No.17428542]

>>17427089
Yeh lolita was cringe. I thought the prose was really irritating, and Nabokov seems to think that referencing obscure things is clever just by referencing them. I initially thought that it was HH's style and Nabokov was trying to make him seem like a self-absorbed douche, but sounds like Nabokov actually thinks it's peak writing. I probably won't read anything else from him unless I'm running low on western canon in 15 years

[Anonymous No.17428546]

>>17428320
what did you think of the Dead?

[Anonymous No.17428574]

Want to read at least 50 books again this year.

So far:
>Frank McCourt - Angelas Ashes
8/10
>Maxim Gorki - Konowalow
7/10
>Robert Bresson - Notes on the Cinemarographer
6/10
>Friedrich Dürrenmatt - Der Richter und sein Henker
7/10
>Thomas Mann - Tonio Krüger
7/10
>Thomas Mann - Mario und der Zauberer
6/10
>Bernhard Schlink - Sommerlügen
7/10


Currently reading The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa and the diaries of Joseph Goebbels. Both are extremly good and interesting.

[Anonymous No.17428617]

>>17428574
>>Robert Bresson - Notes on the Cinemarographer
>6/10
disappointed in you anon

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17428837]

>>17428542
I’m fine with obscure references I’ll even give him that his stories as puzzles/riddles are pretty fascinating constructs, it’s just I find the repetition of mental illness, pretentious (obvious self insert ) which yeah I get it for one book, but the three books I’ve looked into all do it, and yeah nabokov can write well don’t get me wrong, but at times it feels like he’s arranging sentences to fit in specific words. Like here’s a part of pale fire which I didn’t get, I’m an occultist so his reference wasn’t obscure to Me, it just was out of no where.

“ had a tiled bathroom and cost dearer than my Appalachian castle. Neither the Shades nor I breathed a word about our summer address but I knew, and they did not, that it was the same. The more I fumed at Sybil's evident intention to keep it concealed from me, the sweeter was the forevision of my sudden emergence in Tirolese garb from behind a boulder and of John's sheepish but pleased grin. During the fortnight that I had my demons fill my goetic mirror to overflow with those pink and mauve cliffs and black junipers and winding roads and sage brush changing to grass and lush blue flowers, and death-pale aspens, and an endless sequence of green-shorted Kinbotes meeting an anthology of poets and a brocken of their wives, I must have made some awful mistake in my incantations, for the mountain slope is dry and drear, and the Hurleys' tumble-down ranch, lifeless.”

There’s no real context for this bit and yeah I’ve read the theories that pale fire is lowkey a ghost story but that doesn’t justify the above. to me it just seems awkward from a narrative and aesthetic standpoint, and I like magical/weird aesthetic stuff. A lot of his similes fall flat to me I guess.

[Anonymous No.17429141]

Been on an Ellroy kick
Blood on the Moon
Because the Night
Suicide Hill
Black Dahlia
The Big Nowhere

[Anonymous No.17429767]

>>17424392

[Anonymous No.17429942]

Anthology of haiku by Kobayashi Issa
Politics and Political Thought in Meiji and Taishō Japan
Anthology of haiku by Masaoka Shiki
Six Keys to Read and Write Haiku, by Ōta Seiko

>Currently reading:
Anthology of waka by Saigyō
>Next read:
All's Well That Ends Well, by Shakespeare
Measure for Measure, by Shakespeare
Anthology of Bataille's late essays
After Babel, by George Steiner

Hopefully I'll finish all this by the end of February. Plan to read between 45-50 books this year, hopefully end up reading more.

[Anonymous No.17430768]

>>17425151
So you're going to use technology to read books on how technology is bad?

[Anonymous No.17430885]

>>17424392
>finished
If on a winters night a traveler
Solaris
Dubliners
>halfway done
Kalevala

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17430911]

>>17430885
>Kalevala
I hear great things, how’s it compare to some of the other epics you’ve read?

[Anonymous No.17430919]

>>17424403
The Idiot by Dostoevsky

[Anonymous No.17430966]

>>17427089
>Golem
The one from Meyrink, right? Haven't read it, but I'll add it to my list. It's kind of small, so I'm open to most suggestions.

[Anonymous No.17431524]

>>17430911
I personally like it more than the Iliad but less than the odyssey. Approximately Shahnameh tier

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17431586]

>>17430966
That’s the one! It’s real interesting and from your tastes you'll probably enjoy it.

>>17431524
Pretty high praise, I’ll definitely consider eventually getting to it

[Anonymous No.17431593]

the shadow of the wind
hunger
accabadora (trying to fuck a sardinian girl i know)

reading the angels game now, zafon is fun to read

[Anonymous No.17431602]

>>17431586
You’d definitely like it, Väinämöinen is an unforgettable hero

[Anonymous No.17432061]

>>17424392
Men Among The Ruins - Evola
Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse
Journeys In The Kali Yuga - Aki Cederberg
Currently reading The Portable Nietzsche

[Anonymous No.17432118]

The big sleep by Chandler
A Hero of our time by Lemontov
The Stranger by Campus
Heart of Darkness by Conrad
Don Quijote (unabridged)
Bronze age mindset
Demons by Dosto
The Deluge by Adam Tooze

[Anonymous No.17432494]

Bump

[Anonymous No.17433524]

i have so far read
>Islam and the destiny of man by gai Eaton
>Ghost wars by Steve Coll
>world order by Henry Kissinger
>a Silent patient by i don't remember who (book was shit)
>Oedipus the king (if it counts)
and I will have read salems lot by morning if i find it interesting

[Anonymous No.17433556]

[Anonymous No.17433567]

Small Gods
Visions of Excess
The Eye

[Anonymous No.17433575]

Essays in Idleness & Hojoki - Kenko and Chomei
Either/Or - Soren Kierkegaard
A Wild Sheep's Chase - Haruki Murakami

[Anonymous No.17433591]

Anna Karenina
The Bible
Hamlet
Currently reading The Illiad

[Anonymous No.17433693]

>>17424392
>JK Huysmans- La Bas
>Cesar Aira- An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter
>K-Punk: The Collected Writings of Mark Fisher
>The Elementary Particles- Houellebecque'eh'quhuehueh

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17433707]

>>17433693
How’d you like La bas? Are ya gonna continue to the rest of the durtal series? Also, is there anything unique in fisher’s analysis that isn’t explained in harsher terms by baudrillard?

[Anonymous No.17433757]

>>17433567
what did you think of story of the eye

[Anonymous No.17433767]

>>17433707
Fisher put the meat of his analysis into his shorter books proper, this is a posthumous collection of essays. His work on the artistic value of Dido is really what sold me and got me digging, and I can't focus reading on a computer because I end up on this fucking website so I got the book. I appreciate him for his music and film writing more than his analysis which is just a popularization of Jameson's work and some popularization/synthesis with your baudrillards, your debords, your deleuzes, and some sci-fi guys with fucked up teeth like ballard. Those of us who've already read all that can do the synthesis on our own right, it's sort of baby mode.
Nah I liked La-Bas but I don't have the patience for the decadents right now. Too much whining. I liked his confessional style and his descriptions of art (like fisher desu) especially the bit on the Grunewald altarpiece, but his complaints and solutions are pretty shortsighted and secondary mostly to his privileged bourgeois upbringing and overfrequent use of whores. It's so damn self indulgent and un-punk, there's no youthful virility to his worldview, which bugs me. Says something that the black mass sequence probably represents the limits of his imagination- decadence was a bourgeois approximation of rejection of bourgeois morality. Not that there's anything wrong with that, and it's still pretty good.
Thanks for asking.

[Anonymous No.17433780]

tabor - war of the flea
van den berghe - the ethnic phenomenon

[Anonymous No.17433849]

>>17433693
based list
>>17433767
>the black mass sequence probably represents the limits of his imagination- decadence was a bourgeois approximation of rejection of bourgeois morality
well fucking put. i love huysmans as a stylist, but gleaning any sort of grander idea from his work (past the oversaturated dinners, women, and architecture) os pretty much useless imo. i was super excited to continue with the durtal series after i finished la bas, but was super underwhlemed. maybe i'm just a pleb who needs some some demon shit though, but without the core subject matter husymans' style just feels totally disjointed and lost. the cathedral seriously bored me to tears. finished it out of principle and went on to read a rebours and en rade which are both stellar imo, a rebours is my favourite huysmans by a mile.
>>17433707
> is there anything unique in fisher’s analysis that isn’t explained in harsher terms by baudrillard?
honestly, at the risk of sounding oversimplistic, fisher's work is just much more palleatable. he also doesnt address simulation to the same extent or in the same way, and his analyses of pop culture are quite different to baudrillard's. baudrillard also doesn't have the exact same notion of hauntology, and i'd say its useful to read fisher just for that. also if you're a britfag you'll get a pleasant mild sickness from his writing.

[Anonymous No.17433921]

>>17433757
Interesting pornography, was surprised and the dominance of piss and masturbation over fucking. The bull testicle bit was exquisite. I've never much liked priests so seeing one overcome with lust lose his god hiss spit cum and die brought me alot of joy.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.17433989]

>>17433767
Eh fair enough, feels like fisher won’t really be of interest to me in that regard considering I’m already a big fan of deleuze and baudrillard.

As for La-bas and the decadents not being punk, well yeah! They’re about old decay at the end of an era, concentrating on that kind of toxin as the primary ornate aesthetic. If you want more description and confession that is more just like him writing to you and discussing his hot takes, check out a-rebours if you haven’t, it’s an entire book of him mostly just musing about his taste with a few plot elements. (The dream sequence in it though is fantastic.)

And nah I wouldn’t much agree that the black mass is his peak imagination, his peak is in his oneiric stuff like in a-rebours and en-rade, that overly detailed style of his when mixed with delirium makes such an odd admixture. I wouldn’t exactly say he’s rejecting bourgeois thought in the normative sense, he’s embracing the aristocratic fantasy which is already pretty much dead.

While I’m sure you’ve probably read him, how do you feel about Bataille? He’s pretty virile yeah?

>>17433849

Eh I get the appeal but I read huysmans in a different way, I began with a-rebours then the durtal series so to me it was like getting hooked on watching a friend develop, and I’m a pretty heavily religious guy who liked his ornate stuff. In general though I agree that the decadent ornate style is best when fused with weirdness/strangeness, and this is why I’ve been trying to shill Gilchrist to people on here, he’s absolutely ornate and as decadent and ghostly as a decadent can be, but his tales are filled with weird fiction themes and folklore which elevates it.

As for fisher being easier to consume, I never found baudrillard or the like that hard as people make them out to be, so this isn’t really an appeal. Might check out his hauntology and sorry not a britfag! New York City born and raised.

[Anonymous No.17434505]

>>17427406
>oh

[Anonymous No.17434664]

I've only read Joyce's A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man so far. I'm going to the bookstore in a bit to pick up my second book of the year. Just realized most of my list are translations and now I'm thinking I should pick up To the Lighthouse or the Complete Yeats instead.

[Anonymous No.17435601]

>>17434664
If you've just read Portrait of the Artist then you should consider immediately reading Ulysses.

[Anonymous No.17435665]

>>17424392
Limits to Growth - Donella Meadows
Discrimination and Disparities - Thomas Sowell
Also finishing up the Ego and its Own by Stirner and am just starting Manufacturing Consent. The Silmarillion is next

[Anonymous No.17437130]

>>17424392
finished meditations
reading the sailor who fell from grace

[Anonymous No.17437328]

>>17435601
It will be one of the next 5 or so books I read. Read Telemachus and Nestor last week and enjoyed them.

[Anonymous No.17437395]

>>17424392
For now I only have read Hitler's banker: Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht
Still reading Napoleon: a life
Been way to busy with exams after exams

[Anonymous No.17437404]

>>17426927
Atlas Shrugged?

[Anonymous No.17437518]

>>17424392
How to Win Friends and Influence People
Euthypro, Apology, Crito
The Odyssey
Corpus Hermeticum
Man and His Symbols
Bhagavad Gita

finished Genesis and nearly finished Exodus if that counts.

[Anonymous No.17437581]

>>17437404
Bioshock has books like Killzone has books, but not like how the Witcher has books.

[Anonymous No.17437620]

The Black Farm.
I'm expecting to receive The Eternal Champion in a few days.

[Anonymous No.17437684]

>>17424392
Damn you guys read a lot. I finished Moby Dick a few weeks ago and have been reading a few Blake poems a day since then

[Anonymous No.17437715]

Pic related - Ungern Sternberg was a weird man and probably a schizo, interesting though. If I had to guess, he was also the least xenophobic anitsemite to ever live.

Spice and Wolf Vol 16 & 17 - Was fun, shame that apparently its the best LN series so anything else will be downhill from here.