/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.8836660]

ITT books that everyone knows of but no one has actually read, except you actually did and have no one to talk about it with.

[Anonymous No.8836739]

>>8836660
If you want to talk about this book with someone, come along to /lit/'s comfy winter war and peace readthrough, starting next saturday my man.

Also nice trips satan

[Anonymous No.8836740]

>>8836739
you serious?

I was trying to decide between it and infinite jest

[Anonymous No.8836751]

>>8836739
Sounds good. I actually haven't read it in years so I'll probably read along. I'll have to get my copy back from my grandpa.

[Anonymous No.8836759]

>>8836739
Will there be threads or is it over discord? I could get in on this.

[Anonymous No.8836771]

>>8836740
Yeah I'm serious bud. It'll be a good time (as long as people don't give up halfway through like they usually do with readthroughs

>>8836751
Cool man. The more the merrier.

For both of you: the thread'll be up this saturrday night (gmt)

[Anonymous No.8836775]

>>8836759
Threads bud

[Anonymous No.8836777]

>>8836771
thanks for the heads up

[Anonymous No.8836811]

>>8836775
How fast are you guys gonna read it?

[Anonymous No.8836854]

>>8836811
Pretty fast, but manageable. The plan is 25 days, roughly 50 pages a day.

[Anonymous No.8836859]

>>8836739
in for that

[Anonymous No.8836869]

>>8836660
ordered mine for my christmas, I'll make a thread about it when im done.

[Anonymous No.8836876]

>>8836739
What happened to Phenomenology of Spirit?

[Anonymous No.8836917]

>>8836876
Didnt know there was a phenomenonogy of spirit readthrough planned.Wouldnt that need a ton of background reading though?

[Anonymous No.8836943]

>finally read it
>don't want to talk about it because people will think I'm a pretentious dickhead

[Anonymous No.8836965]

/pol/ is too retarded to read this and properly understand. They keep jerking to loli and trump.

[Anonymous No.8836993]

>>8836917
>Wouldnt that need a ton of background reading though?

Not him, but I'll answer: Yes. A decent knowledge of the History of philosohpy and specially Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, Fichte and Schelling. You can read Hegel before the last two as long as you don't skip them at the end.

[Anonymous No.8836996]

>>8836660
>tfw three of my best friends have read it as well.

Feels good to discuss it in real life.
Also, i'm gonna keep an eye open for the readthrough, i might chime in every once in a while.

[Anonymous No.8837042]

Finished it yesterday.

It was a strong 9/10, Natasha is a pure waifu

Prince Andrei was my favorite character and the scene where he reunites with Natasha and his death made me cry

On the other hand, while some of the war scenes were interesting, they did toll on me after a while. And pretty much the entire Epilogue was unnecessary other than the plot stuff (which even that I thought was a bit too saccharine and neatly tied up) because half the points he made about history had already been said.

Definitely a great novel though, worth the effort. Some scenes like the Rostovs going sledding during Christmas time and Nikolai and Sonya's kiss, Pierre's captivity, Natasha's first ball, Pierre's duel with Dolokhov, and etc. will stick in my mind for a while.

Read the Maude translation, Denisov's Elmer Fudd like talk was hilarious.

[Anonymous No.8837066]

>>8837042
I should note that I think that his points about history were definitely much more salient at the time of publication. But now people more or less take it for granted, at least in academia, that Great Man theory is a sham. So to me, the premise was at once something I already accepted, and it was argued entirely too repetitively in my view, albeit being important to the nature of the story.

[Anonymous No.8837358]

What is the book even about? I'm entry-level and I just find it hard to wrap my head around 1000+ pages of stuff going on. Most I've read is like 4-500.

[Anonymous No.8837379]

>>8836739
Do we have a timetable?

[Anonymous No.8837393]

I have multiple friends that have read war and peace. I'm the only one that have finished Don Quixote, and I'll rather discuss that one.

[Anonymous No.8837409]

>>8837379
Here you go friendo.

This is for the Oxford World's Classics edition. I'll produce a version that has chapter numbers instead of pages once my uni exams finish (which means Friday night I'll do that, if all goes to plan; Saturday at the latest.)

[Anonymous No.8837438]

>>8837409
Thanks, can't wait to relive the friendship from all those years ago when we read Infinite Jest.

[Anonymous No.8838278]

best translation?

[Anonymous No.8838311]

>>8836739
damn I wish I had the book, sounds like a comfy winter book to me

[Anonymous No.8839928]

>>8836660

I know this feel desu

> Don Quixote
> Faust

[Anonymous No.8839953]

>>8837409

Do you have any idea how many people are intending to participate?

[Anonymous No.8839970]

>>8836660
maybe you need a better class of friend? this usually happens in college/univeristy, though, where you meet people with similar interests. so if you're not of that age yet, you'll soon find out weeding out the dumb asses you befriended during childhood or high school or because they lived in the same neighborhood as you is beneficial to your quality of life. if you're skipping out on going to college/uni, then you're shit out of luck, mate.

[Anonymous No.8840132]

>>8837409

i hope this is real, im totally in for this

[Anonymous No.8840137]

>>8837358
Lots of rich russians whining about love, lots of Napoleon doing his Napoleon stuff

[Anonymous No.8840212]

>>8839970
Well I just turned 30 and never attended college. So much for that.

[Anonymous No.8840225]

>>8836740
>tfw about to finish Infinite Jest and thinking about reading War and Peace next

wtf

[Anonymous No.8840248]

>>8839953
Not a clue. It seemed quite lukewarm at first in the initial thread, but a lot of folk seem enthusiastic now. So hopefully a good number

[Anonymous No.8840260]

>>8837409
wow i should unironically do this

i was leaning towards anna karenina but this is a big motivator

[Anonymous No.8840664]

>>8836876
>>8836917
>>8836993
this sounds like a great excuse to (re)start with the greeks. would anyone be down for a grand philosophy readthrough? the only question would be to include plotinus, boethius, and aquinas ...

[Anonymous No.8841006]

Damn. I'm already committed to reading The Count of Monte Cristo over Christmas. I'd want to get a nice hardback copy of w&p but I can't afford it at the moment.

Hope you guys have fun, and hey, if anyone wants to do this same thing but with TCoMC then you would definitely have me involved.

[Anonymous No.8841015]

>>8836739
i am up for it too

[Anonymous No.8841038]

>>8841006
OP here. I've actually have an untouched copy sitting on my book shelf for years. Maybe not a bad idea.

[Anonymous No.8841092]

>>8836854
which edition should I buy for this readthrough?

[Anonymous No.8841280]

>>8836739
ayyyiii am in

[Anonymous No.8841329]

>>8841092
Oxford World's Classics ideally. But I'm gonna make a progress chart that uses chapter number instead of pages when I get time, so people can use any edition. The only thing is that I'd recommend the Maude translation over any other translation.

[Anonymous No.8841353]

>>8837409
What's up with the lines separating days? It looks like every five days or so?

[Anonymous No.8841385]

>>8836771
Only problem for me is that I have trouble sticking to one book at the best of times. Picking up another breaks my already-broken rule of six books max. Are these readalong-threads particularly different from discussing books in any normal thread?
>>8836876
Christ that sounds like an exercise in failure.
>>8837393
>>8839928
Patrish. Finished book I, stuck on the part where DQ accosts a random peasant girl 'cause she's Dulcinea. I've a feeling the second-hand embarrassment is going to make this part a lot harder. Which translation did you read?
>>8841329
Holy shit that's actually an edition you can get off libgen. In nice shiny epub, too.

[Anonymous No.8841389]

>>8836739
When you say "starting next Saturday", d'you mean start reading on Saturday, or have read the first fifty pages by Saturday?

[Anonymous No.8841393]

grr i'm too poor to afford the book so I'll be using the ebook, therefore won't know exactly where to stop reading/how long i need to keep reading for.

[Anonymous No.8841416]

>>8841353
Who knows man. It just came out that way I'm not good with computers

>>8841385
They've been of varying degrees of effectiveness in the past. You just kind of have to wait and see whether the book generates interesting conversation or just shitposting. I remember the Gravity's Rainbow readalong started off with some really interesting explanatory and interpretive stuff, but fizzled out halfway through. I wasn't there for the IJ one, but people say that was good too. War and Peace is less of a difficult encyclopaedic tome than either of those books, so I imagine that'll influence how the discussion plays out. Probably a lot of plot conversation, a lot of chat about the books ideas about history, more technical discussion as well probably about characterisation (which is what T. Is famous for after all). The readalong threads, if successful, deal with a work in a lot more detail than a normal thread. In fact, most of the time normal threads discussing books don't even discuss the books beyond "yeah I liked it" or "Pynchon a shit, read Gaddis", because when you lack that sort of foot in the door so to speak, given by particularity (I.e we have all read these one or two scenes and we're gonna talk about them), you have to talk about a book in its totality, which leads more often than not to pretty unconstructive conversation.

But six books sounds like quite a lot to juggle at once so it's really up to you whether you want to join in. I can't read more than two books at once.

[Anonymous No.8841419]

>>8841389
Thread will be up Saturday night (gmt), so probably best to read the first fifty pages on the Friday if you've got time.

[Anonymous No.8841425]

>>8839928
>tfw just finished reading Faust
>tfw none of your friends have read it
>tfw I would look like a pseud in a serious discussion because many references went over my head
Fug

[Anonymous No.8841426]

>>8841425
>none of my friends
Fixed.

[Anonymous No.8841428]

>>8841393
If this is for the war and peace readalong, no worries, cuz I'll be posting a chapter-based progress sheet along with the first thread.

So it's only a problem for the first day, and I can just tell you that we're reading up to chapter 12 for the Saturday night.

[Anonymous No.8841437]

>>8841428
nice

[Anonymous No.8841514]

>Peer Gynt
Seems to me everyone knows at least some of Grieg's accompaniment without knowing the actual play. It's a shame because I consider it one of my favorites.

[Anonymous No.8841537]

Nobody I know at least. It's been 9 years already, shit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Baroque_Cycle

[Anonymous No.8841672]

>>8841416
I'll give it a go. Read the first fifty pages and check out the Saturday thread. It's a lot more reading than I usually do of one book -- usually I do maybe twenty pages for a book in a day. But maybe that's not such a bad thing.

[Anonymous No.8841678]

>>8841672
Yeah, that's part of the appeal of these sorts of readthroughs. Because you're reading alongside others and towards a goal, you really do almost always overshoot the number of pages you think that you're capable of reading in a day. I remember having that feeling about Gravity's Rainbow when we had the readthrough of that.

[Anonymous No.8842986]

Not anyone I know, at any rate.

[Anonymous No.8843026]

>>8839928
I read both friend

[Anonymous No.8843028]

>>8836660
Since my thread isn't producing any responses, I will just try my luck here:

What would be your recommendation (books, papers, whatever) to someone who wants to know more about Russian history, the less biased source the better, and regardless of the era in the said country's history?
Is "War and peace" a good advice as well, if we don't count that "less bias" line?

[Anonymous No.8843046]

>>8843028
Yep pretty good account of the Napoleonic War and a great look at Russian society (mostly aristocrats) at the time if you don't mind all the anti-Napoleon Russia-did-nothing-wrong shilling. Also it is really good.

[Anonymous No.8843047]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Ulysses. It seems like most people just accept that it's one of the greatest books (in English) of all time. Yet, almost no one ever actually reads the whole thing.

[Anonymous No.8843049]

>>8837393
I liked when Quixote rekd a buch of puppets

[Anonymous No.8843056]

>>8843047
>Yet, almost no one ever actually reads the whole thing.
It's in the meme trilogy nigga, most people here only read those 3 books

[Anonymous No.8843109]

>>8843056
Nota actually reading the meme trilogy is part of the meme.

I reckon plenty of anons read half of Infinite Jest and called it a day.

[Anonymous No.8843154]

Man I just want someone IRL to talk about it with

[Anonymous No.8843174]

>>8843049
I, too, enjoyed the clergy-clobbering scene.

[Anonymous No.8843200]

>>8837409
>50-60 pages a day for 25 straight days
People are not gonna stick to this. Whether they should be able to notwithstanding, the average /lit/ user will not keep up this pace.

[Anonymous No.8843353]

>>8843200
This is War and Peace, not Gravity's Rainbow. It's possible to get through it at a fairly swift pace. I only expect possible problems with the abstract theory of history chapters, but we can adjust for that as we're going through.

For most of War and Peace, it's action and conversation, not a lot of complex stuff, so 50-60 pages is only an hour to an hour and a half's reading at what I imagine to be the pace of your average /lit/izen. And like I say, if people really have problems keeping up, it'll be apparent from the start and we can adjust to a rate people are comfortable with.

[Anonymous No.8844924]

>>8837358
It's a mix of an oerview of aristocratic life in napoleonic russia, the history of the invasion, an essay on historiography and philosogy and a classic web of romance.

[Anonymous No.8844930]

>>8843353
I'm gonna try to stick to it. From what I've heard it's an easy read (for a 1200 page book) so I'll probably try to stay 20 pages ahead to give myself a buffer for the rough parts.

[Anonymous No.8844960]

>>8836660

I have a personal basic bitch edgelord library now that I am a (quasi, as life goes) secure bachelor and I have my own place. I've been building it up for about two years.

It's common edgelord stuff, much of which I've acquired precisely because of the latent taboo.

If I could feel comfortable in bringing some of it along to work on break, the only stuff that really interests me as reading material these days, I'd do so. But as it stands I don't want big controversial titles under my nose while at work lest odd impressions follow and so I currently content myself with Houellebecq, nevertheless closely guarded.

It really is basic bitch edgelord stuff, but I feel a vague accomplishment at having amassed it, actually bought copies and hoarded them. I've read the Satanic Bible and its companion the Satanic Rituals, for example. I've been through the more salacious half of Sade's the 120 days of Sodom (typically having skipped the middle bit, though I do mean to finish it at some point) and furthermore predictably having skipped all the other lit in the volume for that one central edgelord text. I have some Giger art books and a Mein Kampf, the latter I really do mean to read at some point but other things are more interesting at the moment. There's a small Crowley selection, I've read the tiny book of the law as well as the book of lies, which latter actually holds some literary interest. Years ago I read my copy of Mao's little red book and wrote it up on wiki (the writeup survives).

Yes I have a Finnegans Wake. It sits there, only flipped through, unread, but I mean to. This goes directly to the OP.

I've recently become aware of an old publication by early American eccentric Timothy Dexter: "A Pickle for the knowing ones". Dexter is an amusing meme, which lends his brief text some credence, but the connection with Joyce's wake is that Dexter was an uneducated man who totally eschewed punctuation or even proper spelling. So in all honesty if you are willing to subject yourself to the one meme, then you must do the other.

I have also recently collected most of the mathematical articles of Theodore Kaczynski, aka the unabomber. If anyone would care to know more about this I'd be happy to share.

My point about this post is to suggest that edgy books are one genre that everyone knows about but no one actually reads, due to their unpleasantness. Obviously other genres may do.

I think I'd like a Psychopathia Sexualis next. There's a shop which has one I think but I don't care about some old musty edition, just having a good working text.

[Anonymous No.8845252]

>>8843109
I've never touched Infinite Jest or Gravity's Rainbow but I shitpost about them all the time

[Anonymous No.8845293]

>>8842986
I just got to the part where Patroclus dies
He fucking owned Hector

[Anonymous No.8845294]

>>8841426
None of mine either though

[Anonymous No.8845439]

Absolutely nobody, which is a shame

[Anonymous No.8845565]

>>8844960
I hope you know you're writing in-character.

[Anonymous No.8845813]

>>8836739
next saturday as in 24 of december?

[Anonymous No.8845835]

>>8837409
I am totally down for this, when do we start? maybey the pace is a bit too high?

[Anonymous No.8845955]

>>8840664
this is the most complete guide I know

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1y8_RRaZW5X3xwztjZ4p0XeRplqebYwpmuNNpaN_TkgM/pub

[Anonymous No.8845982]

>>8845813
>>8845835

This saturday, the 17th.

Sorry if that's too early for people to get a physical copy of the book, but the edition I'm planning on using is on Gutenberg (the maude translation), so if you're in that situation and you still want to take part, you could make do with the online version till your physical copy arrives.

[Anonymous No.8846004]

>>8845982
Nice, I am down for this.

>Gutenberg (the maude translation),
Exactly what I was going to ask, going to use that aswell.

Is there anything I should read before War and Peace?

[Anonymous No.8846054]

Guise, should I read Notes from the Underground or L'Étranger before we start W&P?

[Anonymous No.8846059]

>>8846054
Or some essay from DFW?

[Anonymous No.8846101]

>>8846004
Nah, you can pretty much launch into it. It's not a book you really need to prepare for.

[Anonymous No.8846143]

>>8837393
I read DQ at 13 so I remember jack other than him being a general idiot and his sad, sad death.

[Anonymous No.8846154]

>>8845982
I'm glad /lit/ still has these kind of actvities, count me in.

[Anonymous No.8846161]

>>8836739
Wait til after Christmas you douche, I'm getting my copy then

[Anonymous No.8846162]

>>8846143
Yeah you need to reread it. Thirteen is still young enough to completely miss subtle things an author might do, including Don Quixote being the only intelligent person in the series.
>>8846161
Ebooks my man.

[Anonymous No.8846166]

>>8846162
Yeah I have a kobo but I hate to get a new book and not start at the beginning

I'll be there dude

[Anonymous No.8846179]

>>8841329
>>8845982
>read the French
>read the Maudes' butchery
I'm not sure about this translation, guys.

[Anonymous No.8846182]

>mfw this

[Anonymous No.8846536]

What you guys think of creating a group in goodreads for the people doing the readthrough? i think it would be nice to gather together the people doing it

[Anonymous No.8846545]

What you guys think of creating a group in goodreads for the people doing the readthrough? i think it would be nice to gather together the people doing it..so if anyone create a group in goodreads, post in the next thread and I and possibly other anons will join it

[Anonymous No.8846629]

>>8846545
Why though. And not all of us will have an account.

[Anonymous No.8846636]

>>8846179
Eh, no translation is perfect. Tolstoy especially is an ambiguous case in terms of translation. It's not like Proust where we all know the Moncreiff translation is best. But the man himself supported the Maudes, so I think that must be worth something.

[Anonymous No.8846638]

>>8836739
Comfy War and Peace? Done.
I've done AK already this year.

[Anonymous No.8846649]

>>8846636
I know he vouched for the Maudes himself, but the French "translation"...it's a straight-up rewriting. Removing whole phrases, adding others in.

[Anonymous No.8846873]

>>8846545
That's gay though...

[Anonymous No.8846884]

>>8845293

Brace yourself for the next few books.

[Anonymous No.8846927]

>>8846545
i never understood the appeal of group reading, book clubs (other than to meet women), or read-alongs - all versions of the same nonsense. reading fiction is a solitary practice and should remain forever so. i also cringe when people gather to read a book for some reason they think they need a support group to finish. Infinite Jest, Gravity's Rainbow, and War and Peace come to mind.

[Anonymous No.8846940]

>>8846649
Hmm, that does suck. I guess it just goes to show where the translation meme comes from. I don't really see any way round it without learning Russian though, since all the other translations are so contested (especially P'n'V).

[Anonymous No.8846970]

>>8846927

Here's the appeal apart from those things: to discuss material with people going through it as you are, in order to generate ideas foreign to yourself with people who have the same vantage point (i.e. are at the same point in the book, without having read it before) as yourself. Why wouldn't that be enticing?

[Anonymous No.8847004]

>>8846970
to be honest, i think that's what college/university is for. that's when you acquire all the tools to adequately criticize a text from multiple perspectives. i am not against book discussions, per se, but the requirements and regulations set upon the reader for the sake of discussing the text. i think readers would get far more enjoyment from a novel by reading them at their own pace and discussing it with friends and acquaintances who have also read the book. or maybe i'm just a contrarian grouch. i've never had any enjoyment in the book clubs friends dragged me to, so i speak from personal experience, and probably shouldn't be paid any mind. if you dig them, go for it.

[Anonymous No.8847037]

>>8847004

I agree that you should be acquiring those tools from college/university, but let me put forth two ideas, and tell me what you think:
1) Not everybody is enrolled in a college now, or they missed out on those classes when they were in college, or they aren't currently taking those courses, or good courses aren't available to them where this is focused on.
2) No amount of schooling will ever equip you with the amount of unique viewpoints that people can bring to a text. As a wonderful example of this, I would point out the exegeses of the Iliad and Odyssey, with scholarly papers still being written today discussing them. Religious texts in general are obvious examples here, too.

I'd be foolish to not admit to readers getting less enjoyment out of essentially being assigned a pace to commit to, but even here there are some other ideas to consider. Book clubs and discussion groups and such are supposed to be voluntary activities (and maybe being dragged to them is why you didn't enjoy them?). If you find the pace is too slow for your liking, you're always free to leave and find a more accelerated group, or, as a concession, to read ahead at your pace but make sure that your notes are at the point where the group will next have their discussion, and try your hardest to not reveal future information (e.g. "You'll find that later in the poem. . .").

I've never participated in one before, but I've had some good conversations with people on here and will most likely participate in the War and Peace one for at least a little bit, and the reasons I've given are the reasons why I'm willing to at least give it a shot. What do you think?

[Anonymous No.8847054]

>>8847037
>Being this stupid

[Anonymous No.8847162]

>>8847004
I am excited to do this readthrough, never did anything like this and never discussed books with anyone. The few people I know, at best, read authors such as Stephen King and don't even know who is Homer or Joyce or Alighieri or Goethe or Dostoevsky or Tolstoy or Nabokov is, so basically, this is board is my '/lit/ friend', so why not give this good ole friend a chance to read a book 'together' and discuss it?

[Anonymous No.8847188]

>>8836660
>Yeah my mom saw that musical
>Dude just watch the movie

[Anonymous No.8847800]

>>8836739
Sounds dope.
>>8846927
I don't have any friends, so it will be nice to just do something together with others.

[Anonymous No.8847831]

[Anonymous No.8847970]

>>8836739
Fuck you I was going to start the second week of January

[Anonymous No.8848009]

>>8836739
Should I begin studying characters names and relations now?
All I ever hear is how hard it is to keep up with the characters.

[Anonymous No.8848035]

>>8840664
Yes please!!

[Anonymous No.8848048]

>>8840664
i would absolutely be down

[Anonymous No.8848269]

>>8846154
yeah same, should have a book club type thing every month or so would be nice and encourge more discussion

[Anonymous No.8848279]

>>8836660
I read half of it because it came pre-loaded on an e-reader I got, then I forgot about it and never finished

[Anonymous No.8848312]

>>8845982
would be nicer to start in January and read for the entire month

[Anonymous No.8848453]

What should I know going in?
Anything I should read beforehand about history or shit?

[Anonymous No.8848780]

>>8846940
Shit, looking at the P&V it doesn't remove phrases but what it does translate is translated more loosely, or in some cases too literally (i.e. the literal translation is not what was meant at all).

For example, the Maudes literally just miss out Pavlovna's I will always read it as Pavlova disparagement of fireworks. P&V include the fireworks, but decided for some reason to translate "malade" as "sick woman"; the Maudes' invalid is closer. But then there's the "sortie" issue, in which attack is understandable but P&V's literal "outburst" is actually more fitting given Vasily's condescending personality. But, then again, their baffling choice to translate "avant tout" as "before all" -- literally correct, but utterly wrong: it is meant to be "first of all" (as the Maudes have it), or at least "before everything else" -- is rather damning.

I'm not going to bother with Garnett.

[Anonymous No.8848784]

>>8848269
It would be almost impossible to keep something regular where people agree to choose a book, or would read one they didn't vote for. I think having one anon lead a sine book that many want to read is a better format.

[Anonymous No.8848802]

>>8848453
Do you know who Napoleon was?

[Anonymous No.8848804]

>>8848780
I changed my mind. I did bother with Garnett.
>je ne vous connais plus = """I do not know you in future"""
That is enough Garnett for me.

[Anonymous No.8848817]

>>8848784
I think if only classics were to be chosen a lot of people wouldn't mind reading a book they didn't choose. I wasn't planning on reading W&P but with this readthrough I am excited to read it now.

>>8840664
I would go down on that

[Anonymous No.8848830]

>>8847004
>and discussing it with friends and acquaintances who have also read the book
>"ITT books that everyone knows of but no one has actually read, except you actually did and have no one to talk about it with."

[Anonymous No.8848863]

>>8848780
"sick person" as a translation for "une pauvre malade" is a reasonable one

if anyone has trouble with the P&V translation, with use of specific words, just use word reference dot com

[Anonymous No.8848866]

>>8848802
Vaguely

[Anonymous No.8848869]

>>8848863
It's not obscenely horrible, just loose. I was originally going to complain about literal vs. non-literal translation literal a best but then it turned out they both sucked and in worse, scattered ways.

[Anonymous No.8848872]

>>8848866
He was 19th century Hitler only he did nothing wrong.

[Anonymous No.8848912]

>>8848872
Thanks. Now I'm ready for daddy Tolstoy.

[Anonymous No.8848923]

>>8837409
Hell yeah, this is a great idea, has it started already?

[Anonymous No.8848930]

>>8848923
How can you expect to read War and Peace if you can't even read this thread?

[Anonymous No.8848943]

>>8836660
Own that same exact book but it is so ungodly difficult, for the true scholars. I've never read it

[Anonymous No.8848950]

>>8848943
nicememe

[Anonymous No.8848958]

>>8846054
why not both family, they're not long books
Read The Stranger first, it's the better book

[Anonymous No.8848960]

>>8846054
Cossacks

[Anonymous No.8849082]

How important and often are the French parts? My copy has no translation. I can read them online, but don't want to have to do that too much.

[Anonymous No.8849091]

>>8849082
A lot of dialogue is in french. It takes up quite a bit of the book, some pages are entirely in french.

[Anonymous No.8849100]

>>8849091
Well shit.

[Anonymous No.8849202]

>>8848009
People overhype how difficult it is. If you need to, keep a notebook to note names of characters and relations as you go through.

[Anonymous No.8849211]

>>8848923
Starts this Saturday

[Anonymous No.8849239]

>>8849082
You can read English but you can't read French?

[Anonymous No.8849267]

>>8836739
I'm in. Those aren't real trips though.

[Anonymous No.8849271]

I don't get it do we start reading now and it's going to be talked this Saturday?

[Anonymous No.8849293]

Has anyone read this in its original Russian? Does the English translation take away from the work?

[Anonymous No.8849327]

>>8849271
As tomorrow (saturday, 17th) is the first day, yes, you could have read yesterday, can read today and can read tomorrow, the discussion will be saturday night, but after the first day, you will have only 1 day to read the next 50~ pages

[Anonymous No.8849415]

Yeah I read that shit.

Pierre = ghey

pretty sure he had a wet dream at some point about sleeping in bed with his friend

I read this years ago though

[Anonymous No.8849442]

>>8842986
I'm reading it right now. I guess it's really dependent on finding a translation that works for you.

[Anonymous No.8849469]

>>8849442
Lattimore is best waifu. Merril is close second.

Fitzgerald a shit. Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.

[Anonymous No.8850749]

>>8849239
Correct

[Anonymous No.8850755]

>>8850749
Did you just sleep through secondary school or something?

[Anonymous No.8850757]

>>8849469
>Fitzgerald a shit. Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.
I think you meant best there, friendo.

[Anonymous No.8850763]

>>8850757
No I'm pretty sure I meant he's shit, and that you are, too.

If I wanted to read mediocre poetry masquerading as the work of a great dead author I'd peek into our crit thread.

[Anonymous No.8850817]

>>8850755
I was raised in southern USA, and did sleep a fair bit in high school.
I don't even know if we had a French class, everyone here takes Spanish by default, but almost nobody even learns to speak that.
I don't even think I heard a French word until I was a teenager.

[Anonymous No.8850836]

>>8850817
I understand why you might find French too scary if you were a determinedly lazy coaster in "high school". But it's really, really easy. You could work most of it out just by looking at -- for example, pallier, and working out its relation to palliate. Or sortie and mcfucking sortie.

Spanish would've made French even easier.

[Anonymous No.8850871]

>>8850763

XD!

[Anonymous No.8851083]

>>8848817
>>8848048
>>8848035
do you all seriously want to start this?

if so, we should make a planning thread and/or IRC/discord/whatever to start hashing out names and dates. i think it would be a very good idea.

[Anonymous No.8851111]

>>8851083
I'd be up for it too, starting in the new year preferably

[Anonymous No.8851118]

>>8851083
I would definitely participate with some if not all of a classics read-through

[Anonymous No.8851176]

>>8851083
yes, seriously.

[Anonymous No.8851182]

>>8851111
given the potential scope of it, i couldn't see starting earlier than mid-january or february, especially since some of us will be away from 4chan for the holidays.

>>8851118
what do you mean by classics? ideally, i'd like to reach hegel and wittgenstein, by way of kant, leibniz, descartes and co.

unless popularity demands otherwise, it would be nice to dive right into plato (or the presocratics) and power on past homer and ovid. the only thing i'm unsure of is how much christian theology we'd want to include, but that depends on the makeup and interests of the group.

[Anonymous No.8851185]

Just finished the first day's reading for tomorrow's W&P thread. Comfy times ahead.

[Anonymous No.8851192]

>>8851182
that sounds good to me, I am mostly interested in participating in the threads with /lit/ so the specific works aren't AS important. I don't get much chance for literature discussion in my every day


I'm>>8851118
this guy

[Anonymous No.8851194]

No one I know has ever even heard of it. There's only two videos even talking about it on YouTube and one is a women whos head was in space while she read it and the other is cliff, who I'm pretty sure didn't read it.

[Anonymous No.8851464]

>>8836759
does /lit/ have a discord?

[Anonymous No.8851496]

>>8851185
what chapter did you read to?
I'm going to read from Gutenberg today so I can't tell page numbers.

[Anonymous No.8851592]

>>8851496
same
if im not wrong, i saw someone saying for tomorrow is up to chapter 12

[Anonymous No.8851798]

>>8851194
I might one day make a video on it, just because you mentioned it. I love that book.

[Anonymous No.8852207]

>>8850836
not him, but the first time i heard "sortie" was in neon genesis evangerion.

and i was a national merit latin scholar desu senpai

[Anonymous No.8852328]

>>8836660

[Anonymous No.8852346]

[Anonymous No.8852478]

>TFW at page 90 of 1340 of W&P

Its been a long ride. 9/5/10 book though. Only negative is its length - at times it need a lot of effort to read it. Largely because its so tempting to pick up something short and read through it in a day or two. It has been almost a month reading W&P.

I suggest that W&P readers should do some research of the Napoleonic wars and get a rough idea of who/what/when/where/why. Its a lot easier to understand the scenes at war, or where characters are discussing the war.

[Anonymous No.8852530]

Pretty hype, starting tonight.
You guys better not bail.
I need the support and the expectation that I will keep up to keep me from just putting the book down and masturbating my life away.

[Anonymous No.8852559]

>>8836660
Any book that's not YA.

I swear to christ I'm the only person I know that reads the classics.

[Anonymous No.8852565]

>>8847188
Les Miserables is a beautiful book.

No one reads it though, only watches the musical.

;_;

[Anonymous No.8852600]

>>8845439
Will you explain to me what In Search of Lost Time is actually about? Everything I google about it is surprisingly vague, and I want know what makes it good before I use 100 hours of my life reading it.

[Anonymous No.8852649]

>>8845439
There's a used bookstore in my city that has like 30 different versions of Lost Time. It's fucking weird.

[Anonymous No.8854118]

>>8836739
So...is this shit starting?

[Anonymous No.8854187]

>>8836771
>>8854118
Anon has like four more hours to make the thread.

[Anonymous No.8854473]

>>8854118
>>8852530

>>8854469

[Anonymous No.8854522]

>>8836660
The singularity is near.

[Anonymous No.8856039]

>>8843154
I got a couple of friends to go through the audiobook.

They were both frustrated and sickened at points but ultimately thought it was worth it and said it would "stick with them."