/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.4141805]

Post what you consider to be the greatest prose you have ever read

[Anonymous No.4141809]

First page of Lolita.

[Anonymous No.4141811]

>>4141809

[Anonymous No.4141816]

"This too, shall pass."

[Anonymous No.4141831]

[Anonymous No.4141842]

>Richard Yates
>Most of Conrad
>Bits of Fitzgerald
>Some Wyndham-Lewis

[Anonymous No.4141841]

Just open up Don Quixote

[Anonymous No.4141861]

>The man in black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed.

[Anonymous No.4141862]

Sunset found her squatting in the grass, groaning. Every stool was looser than the one before, and smelled fouler. By the time the moon came up she was shitting brown water. The more she drank, the more she shat, but the more she shat, the thirstier she grew, and her thirst sent her crawling to the stream to suck up more water. When she closed her eyes at last, Dany did not know whether she would be strong enough to open them again

Moon blood, it’s only my moon blood, but she did not remember ever having
such a heavy flow. Could it be the water? If it was the water, she was doomed. She had to drink or die of thirst.

[Anonymous No.4141902]

such a great album

[Anonymous No.4141906]

>>4141861
"It's a pussy plug, Stevie."

-the janitor said to young Stephen in "On Writing"

[Anonymous No.4141911]

>>4141809
for me its all of Lolita, though the first page is the best by far. gave me chills.

[Anonymous No.4141975]

The chapter "Six heurs du soir" in Sartre's Nausea

[Anonymous No.4141997]

What does Africa — what does the West stand for? Is not our own interior white on the chart? black though it may prove, like the coast, when discovered. Is it the source of the Nile, or the Niger, or the Mississippi, or a Northwest Passage around this continent, that we would find? Are these the problems which most concern mankind? Is Franklin the only man who is lost, that his wife should be so earnest to find him? Does Mr. Grinnell know where he himself is? Be rather the Mungo Park, the Lewis and Clark and Frobisher, of your own streams and oceans; explore your own higher latitudes — with shiploads of preserved meats to support you, if they be necessary; and pile the empty cans sky-high for a sign. Were preserved meats invented to preserve meat merely? Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought. Every man is the lord of a realm beside which the earthly empire of the Czar is but a petty state, a hummock left by the ice. Yet some can be patriotic who have no self-respect, and sacrifice the greater to the less. They love the soil which makes their graves, but have no sympathy with the spirit which may still animate their clay. Patriotism is a maggot in their heads.What was the meaning of that South-Sea Exploring Expedition, with all its parade and expense, but an indirect recognition of the fact that there are continents and seas in the moral world to which every man is an isthmus or an inlet, yet unexplored by him, but that it is easier to sail many thousand miles through cold and storm and cannibals, in a government ship, with five hundred men and boys to assist one, than it is to explore the private sea, the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean of one's being alone.

[Anonymous No.4142042]

Quick warm sunlight came running from Berkeley Road, swiftly, in slim sandals, along the brightening footpath. Runs, she runs to meet me, a girl with gold hair on the wind.

[Anonymous No.4142059]

Read Eeeee eee eeee by Tao Lin and tell me you don't feel a severe calm feeling...

[Anonymous No.4142070]

Goodnight nobody. He had never understood that — in one way it was the most magical part of the book, and in another, the most frightening. All the other pictures, the rabbit-child in pajamas, the fire, the old lady rabbit reading, all made sense. The catalog of items, chairs and cats and socks, goodnight, goodnight, then just that blank page and "goodnight nobody." But who was Nobody? It was childhood zen. Sometimes he had thought in his little-boy way that he might be the book's Nobody, Theo himself, an anonymous presence — that the book knew he was out there watching the bunny get ready for bed, looking into the warm, cozy room from outside, as through a window. His mother had contributed to that: whenever they reached that part of the book, she had always said, "Goodnight, nobody. Say goodnight." And Theo had done so. Perhaps she had only meant for him to say goodnight to the little someone known as Nobody. But he had always believed she was calling him Nobody, telling him it was his turn to say goodnight now, and so he had dutifully obeyed.

In this last winter, since the pregnancy test had come back, Theo had sometimes imagined a little girl sitting on his lap — Cat had been certain from the first that it was a little girl, even though they hadn't had an ultrasound exam yet — her head against his chest as they leafed through the book together. In his offhand dreams he had never quite been able to imagine what she looked like, had pictured only a head of soft curly hair, a warm little body pressed against him. Nobody. She had looked like Nobody. And that was who she had turned out to be.

He flicked through the pages, the drawings with their strange, dreamlike perspective. Then at the end, the final little catechism, saying goodnight to the last things — the stars, the air, and to noises everywhere.

That should go on the baby's gravestone, except there would be no stone, no grave. Cat was going to have a D C, as the doctors so artlessly called it, to remove anything that hadn't already come out. Any thing. There would be nothing to bury. Polly, Rose, all the names they had played with, taking their time because after all there had been no hurry, months to wait, and now she wouldn't be any of them. She was Nobody.

Goodnight Nobody.

Sitting on the stairs with a box of books on his lap, he cried.

[Anonymous No.4142083]

"She seized a safety pin caked with blood and rust, gouged a great hole in her leg which seemed to hang open like an obscene, festering mouth waiting for unspeakable congress with the dropper which she now plunged out of sight into the gaping wound. But her hideous galvanized need (hunger for insects in dry places) has broken the dropper off deep in the flesh of her ravaged thigh (looking rather like a poster on soil erosion).

But what does she care? She doesn't even bother to remove the splintered glass, looking down at her bloody haunch with the cold blank eyes of a meat trader. What does she care for the atom bomb, the bedbugs, the cancer rent, Friendly Financing waiting to repossess her delinquient flesh... Sweet dreams, Pantopon Rose"

Naked Lunch by William Burroughs, best piece of prose I've ever read in the english language.

"No glot Clom Fliday"

[Anonymous No.4142090]

>>4141902
>>4141902
yeah DeathCon probably has the best prose ive ever heard

[Anonymous No.4142127]

>>4141831
christ on a cracker he was fat

[Anonymous No.4142136]

TE Lawrence springs to mind.

When I read Seven Pillars and then The Mint I was just all "dat prose"

[Anonymous No.4142142]

>>4142070
What's this from?

[Anonymous No.4142144]

>a howl of such outrage as to stitch a caesura in the pulsebeat of the world

and every other passage from BM

[Anonymous No.4142149]

>>4142083

With arms like yours kid, I'd have me a time.

[Anonymous No.4142152]

>>4142142

[Anonymous No.4142161]

>>4142144
i'd shoot myself if i let that go to print

[Anonymous No.4142166]

>>4142161


No, you're right, Cormac < Shitty Anon

[Anonymous No.4142816]

>>4141902
But that's a painting?

[Anonymous No.4143104]

>>4141805
Every Man His Chimera - Charles Baudelaire

[Anonymous No.4143111]

[Anonymous No.4143113]

>>4141862
>moon blood

Lol.

[Anonymous No.4143132]

>>4142070
Constant use of the pluperfect always annoys me, especially when the simple past would work perfectly well. It sounds clunky and pretentious, especially in modern fiction.

[Anonymous No.4143140]

>>4141809
You mean the part which is basically just purple prose?

[Anonymous No.4143146]

>>4143140
No, the part that's poetic and allusive beautiful prose

[Anonymous No.4143158]

Ça a débuté comme ça. Moi, j'avais jamais rien dit. Rien. C'est Arthur Ganate qui m'a fait parler. Arthur, un étudiant, un carabin lui aussi, un camarade. On se rencontre donc place Clichy. C'était après le déjeuner. Il veut me parler. Je l'écoute. « Restons pas dehors ! qu'il me dit. Rentrons ! » Je rentre avec lui. Voilà. « Cette terrasse, qu'il commence, c'est pour les oeufs à la coque ! Viens par ici ! » Alors, on remarque encore qu'il n'y avait personne dans les rues, à cause de la chaleur ; pas de voitures, rien. Quand il fait très froid, non plus, il n'y a personne dans les rues ; c'est lui, même que je m'en souviens, qui m'avait dit à ce propos : « Les gens de Paris ont l'air toujours d'être occupés, mais en fait, ils se promènent du matin au soir ; la preuve, c'est que lorsqu'il ne fait pas bon à se promener, trop froid ou trop chaud, on ne les voit p lus ; ils sont tous dedans à prendre des cafés crème et des bocks. C'est ainsi ! Siècle de vitesse ! qu'ils disent. Où ça ? Grands changements ! qu'ils racontent. Comment ça ? Rien n'est changé en vérité. Ils continuent à s'admirer et c'est tout. Et ça n'est pas nouveau non plus. Des mots, et encore pas beaucoup, même parmi les mots, qui sont changés ! Deux ou trois par-ci, par-là, des petits... » Bien fiers alors d'avoir fait sonner ces vérités utiles, on est demeurés là assis, ravis, à regarder les dames du café.
Après, la conversation est revenue sur le Président Poincaré qui s'en allait inaugurer, justement ce matin-là, une exposition de petits chiens ; et puis, de fil en aiguille, sur Le Temps où c'était écrit. " Tiens, voilà un maître journal, Le Temps ! " qu'il me taquine Arthur Ganate, à ce propos. " Y en a pas deux comme lui pour défendre la race française ! - Elle en a bien besoin la race française, vu qu'elle n'existe pas ! " que j'ai répondu moi pour montrer que j'étais documenté, et du tac au tac.
- Si donc ! qu'il y en a une ! Et une belle de race ! qu'il insistait lui, et même que c'est la plus belle race du monde, et bien cocu qui s'en dédit ! Et puis, le voilà parti à m'engueuler. J'ai tenu ferme bien entendu.
- C'est pas vrai ! La race, ce que t'appelles comme ça, c'est seulement ce grand ramassis de miteux dans mon genre, chassieux, puceux, transis, qui ont échoué ici poursuivis par la faim, la peste, les tumeurs et le froid, venus vaincus des quatre coins du monde. Ils ne pouvaient pas aller plus loin à cause de la mer. C'est ça la France et puis c'est ça les Français.

[Anonymous No.4143165]

>>4142070
>casually glance past
>read a bit, think nothing of it.
>move on.
"what's this from?"
>war of the flowers.
Oh man.
War of the flowers.
>glance back up.
I FUCKING HATED WAR OF THE FLOWERS.

[Anonymous No.4143164]

>>4141911

I agree with this but I'm biased.

[Anonymous No.4143167]

Crime And Punishment

When Svidrigailov kills himself.

That whole chapter is mindblowingly good.

[Anonymous No.4143174]

>>4143164

you're a pedophile?

[Anonymous No.4143179]

"it was a dark and stormy night"

[Anonymous No.4143185]

street of crocodiles

agua viva

francis ponge stuff

[Anonymous No.4143190]

>>4143174

I think so, yes.

[Anonymous No.4143199]

Pic related.

[Anonymous No.4143202]

>>4141805
Mishimafag elitist here.
So pretty much everything he's ever written.

[Anonymous No.4143205]

>>4143158
Avec la vivacité et la grâce qui lui étaient naturelles quand elle était loin des regards des hommes, madame de Rênal sortait par la porte-fenêtre du salon qui donnait sur le jardin, quand elle aperçut près de la porte d’entrée la figure d’un jeune paysan presque encore enfant, extrêmement pâle et qui venait de pleurer. Il était en chemise bien blanche, et avait sous le bras une veste fort propre de ratine violette.
Le teint de ce petit paysan était si blanc, ses yeux si doux, que l’esprit un peu romanesque de madame de Rênal eut d’abord l’idée que ce pouvait être une jeune fille déguisée, qui venait demander quelque grâce à M. le maire. Elle eut pitié de cette pauvre créature, arrêtée à la porte d’entrée, et qui évidemment n’osait pas lever la main jusqu’à la sonnette. Madame de Rênal s’approcha, distraite un instant de l’amer chagrin que lui donnait l’arrivée du précepteur. Julien, tourné vers la porte, ne la voyait pas s’avancer. Il tressaillit quand une voix douce dit tout près de son oreille :
— Que voulez-vous ici, mon enfant ?
Julien se tourna vivement, et frappé du regard si rempli de grâce de madame de Rênal, il oublia une partie de sa timidité. Bientôt, étonné de sa beauté, il oublia tout, même ce qu’il venait faire. Madame de Rênal avait répété sa question.
— Je viens pour être précepteur, madame, lui dit-il enfin, tout honteux de ses larmes qu’il essuyait de son mieux.
Madame de Rênal resta interdite ; ils étaient fort près l’un de l’autre à se regarder. Julien n’avait jamais vu un être aussi bien vêtu et surtout une femme avec un teint si éblouissant, lui parler d’un air doux. Madame de Rênal regardait les grosses larmes, qui s’étaient arrêtées sur les joues si pâles d’abord et maintenant si roses de ce jeune paysan. Bientôt elle se mit à rire, avec toute la gaieté folle d’une jeune fille ; elle se moquait d’elle-même et ne pouvait se figurer tout son bonheur. Quoi, c’était là ce précepteur qu’elle s’était figuré comme un prêtre sale et mal vêtu, qui viendrait gronder et fouetter ses enfants !

Stendhal. Moins brusque que Céline et un vrai plaisir à lire.

[Anonymous No.4143206]

[Anonymous No.4143207]

>>4143199
What game is that?

[Anonymous No.4143209]

>>4143207
dwarf fortress

[Anonymous No.4143212]

>>4143209
No its not, i used to play it though nostalgia hard right now though.

[Anonymous No.4143213]

>>4143207
Good ol' Corruption of Champions.

[Anonymous No.4143216]

>>4143146
aka purple prose

[Anonymous No.4143220]

>>4143216
No, purple prose is overdone bad prose.

[Anonymous No.4143259]

>>4143220
I'm sorry to break it to you, but that's just what the prose in Lolita is

[Anonymous No.4143274]

>>4143146
>>4143216
>>4143259

>not knowing what purple prose is

Read some of the Victorian writers. They write purple prose.

[Anonymous No.4143284]

[Anonymous No.4143286]

>>4143259
It ain't.

>>4143274
No, and that's an incredibly retarded generalization to make.

[Anonymous No.4143289]

>>4143284
The only funny part of this is the capri sun

[Anonymous No.4143292]

>>4143284

Frankly, I'm more interested in the story above it

[Anonymous No.4143293]

[Anonymous No.4143313]

>>4143292
>mfw this is actually a thing
lellus maximus

[Anonymous No.4143600]

>>4143165

Why did you hate it?

[Anonymous No.4143603]

[Anonymous No.4143616]

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe.
He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

[Anonymous No.4143621]

>>4142083
>looking rather like a poster on soil erosion

WSB is so funny and beautiful

[Anonymous No.4143647]

>>4143603

[Anonymous No.4143662]

>tfw just borrowed Lolita in my native language

Hope the translator didn't butcher it. I'd have to buy the original and I'm not made of money.

[Anonymous No.4143665]

>>4143662

The portuguese translation I have made "fire of my loins" into "fire of my virility", is this accurate?

[Anonymous No.4143672]

>>4143284
>tfw seeing Emma Watson's boobs and butt at the same time

[Anonymous No.4143682]

>>4143665
my czech translation went with more or less "heat of my loins"

[Anonymous No.4143702]

Schon das »Denken an den Tod« gilt öffentlich als feige Furcht, Unsicherheit des Daseins und finstere Weltflucht. Das Man läßt den Mut zur Angst vor dem Tode nicht aufkommen. Die Herrschaft der öffentlichen Ausgelegtheit des Man hat auch schon über die Befindlichkeit entschieden, aus der sich die Stellung zum Tode bestimmen soll. In der Angst vor dem Tode wird das Dasein vor es selbst gebracht als überantwortet der unüberholbaren Möglichkeit. Das Man besorgt die Umkehrung dieser Angst in eine Furcht vor einem ankommenden Ereignis. Die als Furcht zweideutig gemachte Angst wird überdies als Schwäche ausgegeben, die ein selbstsicheres Dasein nicht kennen darf. Was sich gemäß dem lautlosen Dekret des Man »gehört«, ist die gleichgültige Ruhe gegenüber der »Tatsache«, daß man stirbt. Die Ausbildung einer solchen »überlegenen« Gleichgültigkeit entfremdet das Dasein seinem eigensten, unbezüglichen Seinkönnen.

Versuchung, Beruhigung und Entfremdung kennzeichnen aber die Seinsart des Verfallens. Das alltägliche Sein zum Tode ist als verfallendes eine ständige Flucht vor ihm. Das Sein zum Ende hat den Modus des umdeutenden, uneigentlich verstehenden und verhüllenden Ausweichens vor ihm. Daß das je eigene Dasein faktisch immer schon stirbt, das heißt in einem Sein zu seinem Ende ist, dieses Faktum verbirgt es sich dadurch, daß es den Tod zum alltäglich vorkommenden Todesfall bei Anderen umprägt, der allenfalls uns noch deutlicher versichert, daß »man selbst« ja noch »lebt«. Mit der verfallenden Flucht vor dem Tode bezeugt aber die Alltäglichkeit des Daseins, daß auch das Man selbst je schon als Sein zum Tode bestimmt ist, auch dann, wenn es sich nicht ausdrücklich in einem »Denken an den Tod« bewegt.

[Anonymous No.4143724]

>>4143665
>>4143682
This is why I fucking dread translations.

[Anonymous No.4143734]

I’ve begun my voyage in a paper boat without a bottom; I will fly to the moon in it. I have been folded along a crease in time, a weakness in the sheet of life. Now, you’ve settled on the opposite side of the paper to me; I can see your traces in the ink that soaks through the fibre, the pulped vegetation. When we become waterlogged, and the cage disintergrates, we will intermingle. When this paper aeroplane leaves the cliff edge, and carves parallel vapour trails in the dark, we will come together.

[Anonymous No.4143736]

When someone had died or was dying or was so ill they gave up what little hope they could sacrifice, they cut parallel lines into the cliff, exposing the white chalk beneath. With the right eyes you could see them from the mainland or the fishing boats and know to send aid or impose a cordon of protection, and wait a generation until whatever pestilence stalked the cliff paths died along with its hosts. My lines are just for this: to keep any would-be rescuers at bay. The infection is not simply of the flesh.

[Anonymous No.4143824]

"YOU are too old by far to be the type of man who checks his replicase levels before breakfast and has high-baud macros for places like Fruitful Union P.G.I. Coding or SoftSci Deoxyribonucleic Intercode Systems in his Mo.SyS deck, and yet here you are, parking the heads on your V.F.S.A. telediddler and checking your replicase levels and padding your gen-résumé like a randy freshman, preparing for what appears for all the world to be an attempt at a soft date"

Telediddler.

[Anonymous No.4143843]

[Anonymous No.4143859]

>>4141816
Go back to reddit fag

[Anonymous No.4143882]

>>4143843
YAWN
did you know there are like people and they are like powerful and they are like sadists?

SHOCKER OF THE CENTURY

[Anonymous No.4143890]

>>4143843
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17819467-the-juliette-society

Notice that only other women read this fucking trash.

[Anonymous No.4143947]

>>4143843
>http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17819467-the-juliette-society

she's appearing in my country in a book store, should i go?

[Anonymous No.4143948]

>>4143947
fuck yes you should.

[Anonymous No.4143955]

>>4143890
only women are smart enough to comprehend its depth. stay a pleb manchild

[Anonymous No.4143958]

>>4143955
mfw
https://www.google.ca/?gws_rd=cr&ei=wRNGUtzNC4PAyAGMtoH4Cw#q=do+a+360

[Anonymous No.4143965]

>>4143947
There's a non-zero possibility that you could fuck her, so yes, definitely.

[Anonymous No.4144714]

>>4143206
>>4143199
based PKD
greatest CoC writer, shame he left

[Anonymous No.4144748]

>>4144714
>PKD
>writing for CoC
what

[Anonymous No.4144798]

Anything by Flaubert

Recently I've been reading Dubliners and man it has some beautiful descriptions

"The grey warm evening of August had descended upon the city and a mild warm air, a memory of summer, circulated in the streets. The streets, shuttered for the repose of Sunday, swarmed with a gaily coloured crowd. Like illumined pearls the lamps shone from the summits of their tall poles upon the living texture below which, changing shape and hue unceasingly, sent up into the warm grey evening air an unchanging unceasing murmur."

"North Richmond Street, being blind, was a quiet street except at the hour when the Christian Brothers' School set the boys free. An uninhabited house of two storeys stood at the blind end, detached from its neighbours in a square ground The other houses of the street, conscious of decent lives within them, gazed at one another with brown imperturbable faces."

[Anonymous No.4144812]

"All that stirring of old instincts which at stated periods drives men out from the sounding cities to forest and plains to kill things by chemically propelled leaden pellets, the blood lust, the joy to kill - all this was Buck's, only it was infinitely more intimate. He was ranging at the head of the pack, running the wild thing down, the living meat, to kill with his own teeth and wash his muzzle to the eyes in warm blood.

There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive. This ecstasy, this forgetfulness of living, comes to the artist, caught up and out of himself in a sheet of flame; it comes to the soldier, war-mad on a stricken field and refusing quarter; and it came to Buck, leading the pack, sounding the old wolf-cry, straining after the food that was alive and that fled swiftly before him through the moonlight. He was sounding the deeps of his nature, and of the parts of his nature that were deeper than he, going back into the womb of Time. he was mastered by the sheer surging of life, the tidal wave of being, the perfect joy of each separate muscle, joint, and sinew in that it was everything that was not death, that it was aglow and rampant, expressing itself in movement, flying exultantly under the stars and over the face of dead matter that did not move."

[Anonymous No.4144835]

We are all wired into a survival trip now. No more of the speed that fueled that 60's. That was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary's trip. He crashed around America selling "consciousness expansion" without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all the people who took him seriously... All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy Peace and Understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss and failure is ours too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole life-style that he helped create... a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody... or at least some force - is tending the light at the end of the tunnel.

[Anonymous No.4144841]

>"best" thread
Sigh...whatever I'm currently into, just like everyone else.

[Anonymous No.4145926]

" It is prophesied that Thou wilt come again in victory, Thou wilt come with Thy chosen, the proud and strong, but we will say that they have only saved themselves, but we have saved all. We are told that the harlot who sits upon the beast, and holds in her hands the mystery, shall be put to shame, that the weak will rise up again, and will rend her royal purple and will strip naked her loathsome body. But then I will stand up and point out to Thee the thousand millions of happy children who have known no sin. And we who have taken their sins upon us for their happiness will stand up before Thee and say: "Judge us if Thou canst and darest." Know that I fear Thee not. Know that I too have been in the wilderness, I too have lived on roots and locusts, I too prized the freedom with which Thou hast blessed men, and I too was striving to stand among Thy elect, among the strong and powerful, thirsting "to make up the number." But I awakened and would not serve madness. I turned back and joined the ranks of those who have corrected Thy work. I left the proud and went back to the humble, for the happiness of the humble. What I say to Thee will come to pass, and our dominion will be built up. I repeat, to-morrow Thou shalt see that obedient flock who at a sign from me will hasten to heap up the hot cinders about the pile on which I shall burn Thee for coming to hinder us. For if anyone has ever deserved our fires, it is Thou. To-morrow I shall burn Thee. Dixi.'"

[Anonymous No.4145939]

>>4143167
best dream scene i've ever read

[FiRez !!tndrCZJHE+I No.4146013]

>>4142144
I hated The Road but that line won me over. I will read the book thus giving him a second chance.