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/lit/ - Literature

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[ERROR] No.8714104 [Reply] [Original]

/lit/ baby here. Did I fall for some memes or am I up for some good stuff?

>> No.8714112

>>8714104
yeah those are pretty great. Don't get discouraged if you don't understand GR or Ulysses.

>> No.8714121

>>8714112
Okay also. How do I effectively read something like Kant or Wittgenstein? Are there some lectures or commentaries online?

>> No.8714122

>>8714104
If you're new to reading then you're about to buy a bunch of headache.

Switch Blood Meridian for Suttree, Gravity's Rainbow for V, and Ulysses for A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man if you want good starting points for those authors

>> No.8714129

>>8714122
Already purchased but I'll take a look at those too then.

>> No.8714132

>>8714104
>/lit/ baby
>bought ulysses
Jesus fuck anon you're in for a world of pain.

>> No.8714137

>>8714132
What about Ulysses makes it a hard novel to read?

>> No.8714139

>>8714122
V is pretty difficult too, desu

>> No.8714143

>>8714137
Both the prose and the references. Take a gander: www.planetpdf.com/planetpdf/pdfs/free_ebooks/Ulysses_NT.pdf

>> No.8714145
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>>8714137

>> No.8714150

>>8714143
Fuck.

>> No.8714155

>>8714104
>lit baby
>ordered Ulysses and Gravity's Rainbow

ayy

>> No.8714158

Siddhartha is always (unless you're a fuck) a beautiful experience in your life.

Enjoy, anon!

>> No.8714169

If you havent read any serious books lately you're quite literally fucked. Blood meridian is readable but it's about the summation of western literature so good luck. You should've just bought IJ

>> No.8714176

>>8714104
>b8ing this hard

>> No.8714178

That edition of GR has some pretty significant misprints.

>> No.8714190

>>8714178
no it doesn't....... stop this meme... it's old it's played you're gay you're gay come on now...

Any edition of GR (except the where's waldo cover) is just fine

>> No.8714197

>>8714104
>Did I fall for some memes
>

>> No.8714204

>>8714104
You got tremendously memed on

also lmao @ embyos telling you you didn't getm emed on, 10/10

>> No.8714205

>>8714169
I've only read random novels, recently: Decoded by Mai Jia, The Humans by Matt Haig, Inferno by Dan Brown.

>> No.8714212
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>>8714158

>> No.8714215

>>8714204
What would you have recommended instead?

>> No.8714217

>>8714205
you're about to be rocked, you misunderstood the meme. You should read all of those but maybe not as, like, your first books p much

>>8714212
kys froggo

>> No.8714225

>>8714215
Nothing, reading is for fags and women.

>> No.8714226
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>>8714225
why did no one tell me!!!

>> No.8714240

>>8714215
Invisible Cities
Stoner
Crime and Punishment
The Stranger
Sirens of Titan
Demian
Ficciones
As I Lay Dying
Things Fall Apart
The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea
Kafka on the Shore

>> No.8714241

>>8714215
Siddhartha is fine. Replace Ulysses with Heart of Darkness, it's a really good introduction to modernism. If you want a big book, I'd recommend Don Quixote; it's an easy and entertaining read.

>> No.8714243

>>8714104
You'll most likely enjoy Siddhartha the most because it is a simply written book with a universal message. The others will probably be shelved until you feel ready for them.

For new readers who want something literary I would suggest something by Tolstoy or Dostoevsky. They are nowhere as forbidding as Ulysses, Blood Meridian and Gravity's rainbow, and you would be reading something that is widely read, universal, and edifying. It is like you deliberately chose the most stodgy and esoteric books to begin with - so much so that I am beginning to think this is another bait post.

>> No.8714244

>>8714240
>>8714241
Incorrect; see >>8714225
>>8714226
I tried bro, I post this like every day and tell you guys to spend your money on steroids instead

>> No.8714245

>>8714241
>Heart of Darkness
Heart of Darkness (Dover Thrift Editions) Paperback – Unabridged, July 1, 1990
Should I get this one?

>> No.8714259
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>>8714245
>>8714241
Ok ordered it.

>> No.8714265

>>8714245
>Dover Thrift
idk, should be fine. I don't know anything about that publisher, maybe another anon does.

>> No.8714277

>>8714104
Great list. I've read all of these and Siddhartha is easily hands down the best book I've ever read. I'm big on zen though (it makes all other things better and/or irrelevant).

My advice:
>get rid of any goals to finish the books just for the sake of being able to tell people you finished them.
>the plot is only half the fun, probably even less. focus on creating the scene in your mind's eye, and feeling the book take you to another place. the better the writing quality, the easier this is to do. "A reader lives 1000 lives before he dies, a non-reader lives just 1." - this is completely true because if you truly step into the writing in your mind's eye the feeling is really cool.
>that being said, don't be deterred by giant doorstop sized books, think of it like you have a huge abundance of this story, the longer the better, because if you're truly reading and appreciating the writing for the right reasons you'll never want the book to end.

>>8714121
I'd recommend Letters From a Stoic by Seneca, or Zen Mind: Beginner's Mind. This is much more actionable philosophy to implement into your daily life, and will most likely produce the outcome I think you're looking for.

>> No.8714282
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>>8714277
>Siddhartha is easily hands down the best book I've ever read
Does it also happen to be the ONLY book you've ever read?

>> No.8714293

>>8714282
I've read almost every book in /lit/'s "top 100" and it's the most underrated book of all time. I'm pretty biased though, since the place I was at in my life at the time of reading it had a huge role in my appreciation for the book. It's what created my love for both zen philosophy and literature, and I carry a copy of it with me almost everywhere similar to how serial killers carry Catcher in the Rye

>> No.8714351

>>8714104
Well, our memes are kind of served with a small side of serious, and by that I mean that we like to meme books that are actually good and give pretty decent advice.
Seriously, we're better at advice than /adv/.
Take, for example, "start with the Greeks." One may use (or meme, in this case) this term time and time again in response to the classic question of "what book should I start with?" While still a meme in the sense that it is overused inside humor, it is still a great idea to begin with Greek literature because it serves as a gateway for many other western literary works.

>> No.8714382

>>8714104
Just keep at it, don't be discouraged by shitposters. I was in your shoes once, I tried to read GR with nothing but genre fiction under my belt and couldn't understand a thing. Best of luck, and don't neglect poetry - try to read some every day.

>> No.8714443

>>8714104
lmao dumbass why would you buy GR and ulysses (even wordsworth at that!)

>> No.8714465

ehhh the bottom three are a bit difficult if you're a babby

go through the /lit/ starter kit before trying books like that

also get an e-reader

>> No.8714521

>>8714143
Prose is easy; it's not FW. References are difficult whether well-read or not, and not too important in any case.

>> No.8714526

>>8714521
Also OP: what you bought is fine.

Those telling you it isn't are assuming you're a retard. It's possibly you are, in which case you're fucked, but it's possible you aren't.

>> No.8714660

>>8714104
>those prices
Wish they were like that in my country.

>> No.8714773

>>8714121
You start with the Greeks.
Seriously, read Plato's dialogues before anything.

>> No.8715112

>>8714660
canada bro?

>> No.8715119

>>8715112
Nah, the other shitposting country.

>> No.8715127

>>8715119
ayy cunt

>> No.8715143

>>8715127
Yeah mate.

>> No.8715147

>>8714104
Isn't that the shitty version of GR with all the errors and misprints?

And Ulysses is going to be a pain if you either
a) haven't read most of the major books in the Western Canon and
b) haven't read Joyce's earlier works

I wouldn't even bother reading it until you've done those things. 700 pages is a slog if you can't properly appreciate it.

>> No.8715151

>>8714104
This isn't the greeks. You fucked up OP.

>> No.8715252

>spending money on books

i dont understand op

>> No.8715259
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Those are good books, but probably too hard if you don't read easier stuff first. Dosto, Steinbeck, Hesse, and other McCarthy stuff is good.

>> No.8715296

>>8714121
>>8714121
Max Black has a companion to the Tractatus that's really helpful and readable. You're not going to get a lot out of Wittgenstein if you don't read secondary literature. I can't find the quote, but somewhere he said something like: "people probably won't fully understand what I've written unless they've also come up with it themselves."
You absolutely don't have to start with the Greeks; if you do, you'll probably be disappointed.
It's good to read things you like.

>> No.8715308
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Should I?

I'm thinking of going all in on Russian lit this summer. I've read the big three Dostoevsky books and have yet to read Tolstoy. I've got at least three months of doing nothing starting in two weeks.

>> No.8715312
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>>8714259
>Dover Thrift Editions.

>> No.8715325

>>8715308
Yes but don't buy them. Save your money and go to the library.

>> No.8715343

If you're not a somewhat seasoned reader, you likely won't enjoy or even finish GR and Ulysses. Blood Meridian will probably be fine though. Never read Siddhartha but from what I'm seeing it's pretty short so it can't hurt.

Don't read books because they are memes, OP. If you want to become serious about literature, don't start with the books that are seen as the apex of it. Start with books that are more immediately relevant to your interests and progress from there.

>> No.8715346

>>8714104
Both. The books you bought are all very very good but, with the exception of Siddharta, are also very very difficult. You may not like them on your first read but I'd encourage you to come back to them later once you've read a bit more.

If you want shorter, easier introductions to Pynchon and Joyce I recommend The Crying of Lot 49 and Dubliners. Both are under 200 pages and IMO Dubliners is one of the greatest short story collections in the English language.

The books you bought don't really focus much on plot FYI. I don't know how well read you are but if you're trying go get into "serious" lit, you'll find that plot takes a backseat in many many works and I encourage looking more at other elements (prose, characterization, theme, allusion, etc) if you're used to reading for plot.

Also, for future reference, Wordsworth and Dover Thrift are kind of iffy; while cheap they quality of the books themselves isn't great, they often lack helpful introductions and/or endnotes and/or footnotes etc, and they're dog shit for translations. Always research translations before making a decision

>> No.8715581

>>8714245
Do not buy anything that says "Dover Thrift", "Signet Classic", "Wordsworth Classics" or "mass market paperback".

>> No.8715600

Add the following for a nice, compact overture of literature.

Catch-22
Infinite Jest
The Divine Comedy
King Lear
Hamlet
Macbeth
Stones of Aran
The Norton Anthology of Poetry
Four Quartets
One Hundred Poems from the Chinese
A Confederacy of Dunces
Beowulf
The Lord of the Rings
Watchmen
Gödel, Escher, Bach

>> No.8715609

>>8715296
That's a good quote and a good suggestion. Some people will just click easier with certain authors/thinkers than others. And you won't know until you actually read them.
There's probably something interesting here to do with personalities or ways of thinking.