/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.22141762]

Good intros to lit?

Haven't read many important classics or anything, just the obvious ones like Gatsby, slaughterhouse five, a farewell to arms. What are some good starter books to get into lit?

[Anonymous No.22141769]

Start with the Greeks

[Anonymous No.22141773]

The illiad

[Anonymous No.22142412]

>>22141762
Start with short stories and novellas by great authors, that way you'll get quality literature without overextending yourself until you've cultivated literate taste and habit. Tolstoy, D. H. Lawrence, Doets etc. all have published story collections you can quickly dip into.

[Anonymous No.22142437]

I recommend you read Dubliners by James Joyce and then try reading a Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
The Trial and Notes from the Underground are also good
The Temple of the Golden Pavilion is great

[Anonymous No.22142486]

>>22141762
Lot 49

[Anonymous No.22142509]

>>22141762
Alexandre Dumaz I'd say is best
The Count of Montechristo and the three Musketeers, are perfect for both beginners and veterans

[Anonymous No.22142514]

>>22142412
Dürrenmatt is the King of short stories imo and they are very accessible too

[Anonymous No.22142619]

>>22141762
The Count of Monte Cristo. It is the classic that normies reads to feel accomplished. Go on r/books and look at the amount of circlejerk threads on it. It uses very simple language despite being overly long, like 500 pages longer than it has to be.

[Anonymous No.22142639]

I think just find something that looks good to you.
It's such a subjective experience to enjoy something or to find something that resonates. Maybe try hone in on a genre first.

[Anonymous No.22142645]

>>22141762
Start with the incels

[Anonymous No.22142653]

>>22142619
Why so judgemental?

[Anonymous No.22142657]

>>22142653
/lit/izens are never overly mean, they're just always condescending and snarky, this one in particular doesn't like people that have read The Count of Monte Cristo because afterwards, he thinks that they try to sound smart and accomplished. People on 4chan no matter the board will always hate popular things though, everyone here loves being a contrarian.

[Anonymous No.22142690]

>>22142653
>>22142657

Because it is not a well-written book. The word count is extremely bloated because he was payed by line, so Dumas uses the most amount of words possible, repeats himself constantly, and includes unimportant or redundant information. And this isn’t his normal writing style, as evidenced by the Musketeer books. What’s appealing about Monte Cristo is the grand narrative.

People pick up Monte Cristo because it is French and very long. It is the most popular classic. It is portrayed as the greatest book ever online because people don’t bother reading beyond it and go back to YA Fantasy or whatever. But when they do read it, you best believe they are going to let everyone know about it and gush about it when making their thread.

However, it is a good introduction as it goes by quite quickly despite the length. You can then say you’ve read it and leave it at that. It is really the only badly-written book that has been engraved into the western canon.

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/10/28/the-cult-of-the-imperfect/

[Anonymous No.22142746]

Whats a good book to read if I don't really like anything and can't stick with anything? I dont have ADHD, just nothing grabs me. I dont tip into liking anything at this point. I am a very passionless person

[Anonymous No.22142971]

>>22142746
Pic related, to change your anhedonia

[Anonymous No.22142979]

>>22141762
How to read a book by Mortimer Adler

[Anonymous No.22142988]

>>22142412
best advice itt. First this, then the greeks, then the other classics. I also recommend Pushkin, his short stories are great

[Anonymous No.22142989]

>>22141762
Le Morte d'Arthur
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Wuthering Heights
Little House on the Prairie

[Anonymous No.22144696]

>>22142690
>An actual, thought out reply, imagine my shock
I'm going to have to reread it to check if I notice what you mean with constant repetitions and unnecessary fluff. However I never cared much for its "grand narrative" and the "themes". I simply liked how Dumas has already created investment what feels like 5 pages into the introduction of every new character and his detailed description. For example the scene where he tries to talk the depressed young man out of suicide and they sit together in his tent. Made me feel like I was actually there with them and I love when books do that. Maybe all the unnecessary stuff is just that kind of description and explanation I like, but I'll see.

[Anonymous No.22144703]

>>22142746
Linear Algebra Textbooks

[Anonymous No.22144714]

>>22144703
I am terrible at math.
>>22142971
I despise this kind of book

[Anonymous No.22144766]

>>22144714
>I am terrible at math.
'twas but a jest
I once again recommend Dürrenmatt and his short stories, I can't for the life of me find the english title of a particularly good one but in german it's called "Stoffe"

[Anonymous No.22144790]

>>22141762
Start with the Australians

[Anonymous No.22144793]

>>22141762
Pick any one.

[Anonymous No.22144905]

are there any books similar to disco elysium but actually good? doesnt have to be a police procedural or fantasy. vaguely similar thematically and prose wise would be cool

[Anonymous No.22144986]

>>22141762
depends what you're into. there is plenty of easy reads like gatsby, f451 etc or you can put more effort in and pick up something in the western canon that's a good starting point for classics - wuthering heights, frankenstein or whatever are all fine.

[Anonymous No.22145551]

>>22142690
>Dumas uses the most amount of words possible, repeats himself constantly, and includes unimportant or redundant information
I have compared the original french text with the english version and I gotta say the translation feels somewhat clumsy.
The french text flows quite nicely despite all of the unnecessary details

[Anonymous No.22145569]

>>22141762
Read the pinned thread.

[Anonymous No.22145729]

>>22141762
listen to >>22142412

also you should take away from what he said by understanding that it's important to cultivate a good sense of taste. it's easy to do that once you find a work where you find "the juice".

everybody has different tastes, yes, and you shouldn't feel bad if you read a "classic" and don't like it, however if you don't get anything out of any of them that you read, you should take some time and effort to read more carefully, and why you're reading in the first place.

i had my little moment when i was 17 and had to read All The Pretty Horses in high school (RIP McCarthy). i read most of the book with normal high school reading assignment carelessness, however when i got to the following two sentences, i remember being pretty awestruck at how beautiful they were. i had never felt touched by a book before:

"He thought that in the beauty of the world were hid a secret. He thought that the world's heart beat at some terrible cost and that the world's pain and its beauty moved in a relationship of diverging equity and that in this headlong deficit the blood of multitudes might ultimately be exacted for the vision of a single flower."

once you get bit by that feeling, just once, it quickly becomes very easy to understand what is "good" versus "bad" in terms of taste and literary merit. of course it isn't universal, but there is enough overlap between individuals such that we have books hailed as "classics" and concepts such as "literary merit".

Dubliners by Joyce is a good place to start too, as >>22142437 said. You could even start with The Dead in Dubliners, which most people think is the best story in there. The last paragraph has been called the best one ever written in the english language--if you can appreciate that, then you are well on your way!

[Anonymous No.22145785]

>>22141762
Hamlet, Lolita, and the Odyssey