The /lit/erary Canon

[Anonymous No.6511954]

Let's create the must read books for /lit/. Most of those starter kits are awful.

The Iliad-Homer
The Odyssey-Homer
The Divine Comedy-Dante
Paradise Lost-Milton
Crime and Punishment-Dostoevsky
The Brothers Karamazov-Dostoevky
Ficciones-Borges
Blood Meridian-McCarthy
Lolita-Nabokov
Metamorphosis-Kafka
The Stranger-Camus

Add more.

[Anonymous No.6511965]

Moby Dick

[Anonymous No.6511971]

A Portrait of the Artist & Ulysses, obviously.
The Count of Montecristo.

[Anonymous No.6511974]

Holy Bible

[Anonymous No.6511977]

Please get rid of Camus. No one cares about him any more

[Anonymous No.6511989]

You should start with the less obvious titles, not the most obvious. You can go into a cheap bookstore and come out with all of those books you just mentioned for next to nothing because they are so well read

Also must reads that are more modern are going to be a harder debate than well accepted classics

[Anonymous No.6511993]

Remove borges mccarthy and camus.

[Anonymous No.6512000]

>>6511954
Please remove McCarthy from this list.

[Anonymous No.6512006]

>>6511993
>Remove borges
I cannot forgive this.

[Anonymous No.6512012]

I'll drop some more modern ones.

Atonement
Gravity's Rainbow
Ragtime
A Confederacy of Dunces
Kafka on the Shore
The Elegance of the Hedgehog (or whatever the fuck it's called in English)
Blindness
2666
Infinite Jest
American Pastoral

[Anonymous No.6512018]

>>6511993
Remove yourself, bitch.

[Anonymous No.6512030]

>>6512012
>Atonement
Blech

>Kafka on the Shore
Nah

>The Elegance of the Hedgehog
Is this actually good or just some silly thing that became popular for some reason

>Infinite Jest
Whatever. I guess it's unavoidable

[Anonymous No.6512071]

http://interleaves.org/~rteeter/grtbloom.html

[Anonymous No.6512131]

What do you guys think of this /lit/erary canon? Put the full image on imgur b/c it's too big for 4chan

http://i.imgur.com/ORDzeaK.jpg

[Anonymous No.6512133]

>>6511977
I care

[Anonymous No.6512151]

>>6511954
Summa Theologiae.
Prometheus Bound.
De Rerum Natura.

[Anonymous No.6512161]

>>6512131
Its pretty good, though I think there could be primary and secondary /lit/core depending on how often we talk about the books.

[Anonymous No.6512165]

>>6512131
>No Tolstoy
>No Proust
>Stirner
>Camus
>fucking Bret Easton Ellis
>DFW
it's shit

[Anonymous No.6512166]

>>6512161
You should absolutely not decide what to read based on how much people talk about it on 4chan.

[Anonymous No.6512175]

http://i.imgur.com/5LwvKl0.jpg
Added Moby Dick and Confederacy

[Anonymous No.6512203]

>>6512006
Borges is topest tier, but not nearly as influential as Homer. Starting kit should not be about value but about influence.

[Anonymous No.6512219]

>>6512203
He's one of the most influential authors of the 20th century, at the very least. And if we remove him, then why not Nabokov as well, who is almost definitely less influential?

[Anonymous No.6512231]

>>6512131

[Anonymous No.6512271]

>>6511954
The book of disquiet

The picture of Dorian Gray

Lolita

[Anonymous No.6512282]

>>6512131
Okay so I don't do a lot of reading anymore, but I very much wish to start back. I've been lurking /lit/ for quite a while, and upon seeing this image, in this thread, I have made a commitment to myself to read all of these books.

My question is whether there is an order that would be beneficent to read these in? Some way to ensure that I understand references and what not?

Or possibly there are better /lit/ starter guides than this image? I don't know, but I am ready to begin.

[Anonymous No.6512285]

>>6512271
Oh I only just saw that link. So you should put Pessoa on there too :)

[Anonymous No.6512292]

What is the point of this list? Greatest works? Or the most influential? Or a starter canon?

[Anonymous No.6512303]

This list needs Plutarch

[Anonymous No.6512307]

>>6512282
>Okay so I don't do a lot of reading anymore, but I very much wish to start back. I've been lurking /lit/ for quite a while, and upon seeing this image, in this thread, I have made a commitment to myself to read all of these books.
Why do people do this. Why. How do they even get stupid ideas like this into their brains. Do you really think that 4chan is the place to go to for literature recommendations. Really. What the fuck

[Anonymous No.6512315]

>>6512203
Maybe it shouldnt be about influence or value but rather accessibility while having value? For a first timer The Brothers Karamazov might not be the best, rather something easier like steinbeck and short stories/books.

[Anonymous No.6512322]

>>6512307
Similar to /fit/. 80% of the people there are there to shitpost and then others come from other boards to "change their life" and get terrible advice.

[Anonymous No.6512332]

>>6511954
This list doesn't make sense. There isn't any coherence between those titles. Who would think there's something useful reading the Odyssey then A. Dumas? This is an amazingly useful starter kit for someone pretending and posing. For those who actually give two fucks to literature, such an inconsequent list won't help them in any way.

[Anonymous No.6512343]

>>6512322
Yup

[Anonymous No.6512372]

>>6512307
Because otherwise I would just continue to either not read anything, or read random sci fi novels that I get at thrift stores.

Thanks for the help and acceptance though.

[Anonymous No.6512378]

>>6512131
how new are you you stupid fuck, can you not check the "classics" section on /lit/'s wiki ?
fuck, it's truly amazing how dumb people can be

[Anonymous No.6512385]

>>6512307
>entire fucking board dedicated to literature
>do you really think this is the place to go for literature

[Anonymous No.6512395]

>>6512385
what the fuck? Is there just a sweat shop of Chinese kids churning out Pepes for everything?

[Anonymous No.6512398]

>>6512307
>theres any difference between being recommended by /lit/ to read fucking Homer than being recommended by anywhere/anyone else

what

[Anonymous No.6512399]

>>6512385
Well what is this board for then?? Sorry I originally browsed r9k, what do you guys do here?

[Also all these food verifications at 3am is making me hungry.]

[Anonymous No.6512417]

>>6512219
Honestly I don't think he is more influential than Nabokov. Lolita is the memest of memes, most of the normfags heard about Lolita, how many heard about The Book of Sand?

[Anonymous No.6512419]

>>6512315
I think the list is more for /lit/ begginers so they can lurk better, not for literature beginers

[Anonymous No.6512426]

>>6512399
Shitpost ofc
Did you know philosophy >>> STEM?

[Anonymous No.6512444]

>>6512395
It's possible

[Anonymous No.6512466]

>>6512417
Influence =/= namedropping

[Anonymous No.6512478]

>>6512000
no

[Anonymous No.6512488]

Needs more Arthur C. Clarke

[Anonymous No.6512500]

>>6512466
Chicks love namedropping nigga

[Anonymous No.6512613]

>>6512030
I knew Kafka on the Shore was a bit of a controversial choice, but I just like it too much. And yeah, I included more IJ because it's unavoidable here on /lit/ than because of any undying love I have for it. The Elegance of the Hedgehog, well, I think it's good. Its philosophical musings are perhaps a bit entry-level for the people in this board, but the writing's good, and the intertexts are interesting. Also, it's a book lover's book, which is always cool for me.

Anyway, can we get some books up in this bitch? It seems all you do is shit on each other. And yeah, I know it's 4chan, but let's keep it patrician. I'll suggest some more. Some are non-modern.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being
At Swim-Two-Birds
Waiting for Godot
Don Quixote
La Morte D'Arthur
A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
One Hundred Years of Solitude
House of Leaves
The Sisters Brothers
Pedro Paramo

Btw, what some of you plebs need to understand is that a canon should be a list that people approach in order to read what's collectively important first and then read deeper into what interests or moves them. All this Camus-hate, for example, just makes you sound like total fags.

[Anonymous No.6512615]

Read what you enjoy ffs

[Anonymous No.6512624]

>>6512613
>Kafka on the Shore
>let's keep it patrician

...

...

[Anonymous No.6512633]

>>6512624
I already said I knew it was a controversial choice, if you can't contribute shit gtfo.

[Anonymous No.6512636]

Add the Bible. It's probably the most fundamental along with Shakespeare. And of course the Greeks

[Anonymous No.6512637]

>>6512633
>if you can't contribute shit gtfo.

Big words from someone who contributes nothing but shit. Fucking House of Leaves. Just go away.

[Anonymous No.6512638]

what does /lit/ think of The Man Without Qualities?

[Anonymous No.6512642]

>>6512637
Like it or not it's an influential book that often gets talked about here. What the fuck do you like that's written after 1990, dipshit?

[Anonymous No.6512644]

>>6512613
If that's your attitude, and I don't necessarily disagree with it, why not just call that /lit/ 100 list the canon, since it's the stuff people talk about the most (or did in 2011 or whatever)

[Anonymous No.6512646]

>>6511954
Do you not know that there already exists a literary canon?

plz go to school anon

[Anonymous No.6512663]

Add Some token Stenmbeck Vonnegut Hemingway and Faulkner to serve as an introduction to those writers.

Respectively
Of Mice and Men
Slaughterhouse 5 or Cats Cradle
Sun Also Rises/ Old Man and the Sea
As I lay Dying and short stories

[Anonymous No.6512673]

>>6512644
Precisely, because it's not 2011, it doesn't hurt to revise. Besides, list making is fun and all.

Anyway, I'm just trying to contribute some books that I enjoy (and would like to see being discussed), mixed up with some books that have cultural or /lit/eral importance, that's all.

[Anonymous No.6512884]

Dream of the Red Chamber
Tale of Genji
Tale of the Heike
Journey to the West
Water Margin
Romance of the Three Kingdoms

[Anonymous No.6513318]

>>6512175
>Infinite Jest

[Anonymous No.6513485]

>>6512012
>Gravity's Rainbow
>Infinite Jest

N O P E
O
P
E

[Anonymous No.6513559]

What is the point? The canon is already established, with worthy writers noted.

None of the authors you have listed are unknown or anything new.