/lit/ - Literature

She could be all there is and I wouldn’t know the difference

Paling, she sits in her
crooked chair in the
grey space between two
light fixtures. Her left hand
trembles, its depthless fingers
overflowing with her hot mug,
as if there could be no mug but only
the depths of black coffee it contains.

She may open her mouth to speak,
but it is hard to distinguish between these
false starts and her vague cheekchewing.

We know if she let us listen to her
we would fall to our knees, close our
eyes and reach toward her bare heart,
now open and welcoming.

We know if she was to lift her head to
the sun, it would blink before her.

She is not a book to be read from
her looks or her fashion.

She is not to be read at all.

She is a mirror and the sea and
God and you and me and her
and she contains this all in that
hot mug which could not exist.

>>7806058
I saw a stage adaptation of Orlando put on by my uni's theatre society. it was pretty interesting, although the character of orlando is funny in his/her overt melancholy. interesting plot.

>The Sound and the Fury, Faulkner
>Not very far in, and I tried reading it originally in high school and I couldn't get through it. After about 70 pages I had stopped to read other things. But so far I'm enjoying it, albeit relatively confused at all points.
>I'm just working through a reading list I have, so this next book has no correlation to my current one: The Picture of Dorian Grey. Following that I've got The Iliad (already read the Odyssey several times), then TCOL49, then Crime and Punishment.

>>7811584
>>7811562
No but sometimes I wish I was gay. I've got so many good /lit/teratti guy friends to drink, smoke with, and to discuss philosophy and poetry with.

I have a roommate who likes reading, and we're both studying English at university together. He's a year older than me, and we like similar books, although he is more into prosaic text, while I am into more obscure prose which is easily translated into poetry. Not that I disrespect that, or think him less than me, or my myself interested in "higher" forms of literature--just different taste.

We are both also taking a lot of creative writing courses, and both enjoy writing a lot. I write more poetry and he more fiction. I find that his relationship to writing is more of an aesthetic one--he occupies that neo-traditional "male writer" posture of the drinker, the feverish writer who is inspired and must take to the pen and paper. A very romantic mid-20th century character.

But we both love literature and talk about it over a cigarette or a glass of scotch or wine. We're both in a literary society (read: fraternity) that meets weekly to eat, drink, and talk about poetry, philosophy, music, and fiction. It's pretty gay but enjoyable, and a good way to meet people to talk to about that kind of stuff.

>>7790776
>>7791667
Oh and also read "The Sandman" by Hoffmann, then read "The Uncanny" by Freud. It's just an essay, not a book, but goddamn it's amazing.

>>7790776
I would add The Ego and the Id to that list.

>>7785128
People mostly don't agree with Descartes but he's still constantly mentioned. The cogito is one of the most important, in terms of influence (positive and negative), conceptions of all early modern and contemporary philosophy.

Climbing those well-worn stone stairs, Harry counted the steps, knowing he would fall into familiarity with the final one. Three steps took him up six stairs to the deep brown mahogany front door of Diane’s house. Facing this side of the door had become commonplace for him, but he had never seen it from the other side. He paused at the door, his hand hovering around the knob, fingers shaking, bitten by the freezing air blowing from behind him. His watch read 4:15pm—he was late. Diane was expecting him at four, and now he was thrown from his seat in familiarity into a pit filled with the bodies of other familiar moments. Stepping back from the door, his foot planting itself in a murky puddle which splashed his ankle with speckled brown liquid, he could smell his anxiety, its breath hot on his neck, and he heard it whisper, Just go home. It’s not worth it—you know that. He pivoted on the heel sunk in the puddle and turned to face the wind, hair blown across his forehead from right to left and back again, until right and left no longer could describe its position. As he took the first stair, the knob turned and the door creaked open, letting the cold winter air run between Diane’s legs, which were not covered by her housecoat.
“Where are you going, Harry?”
Turning only his neck, and even then not far enough to see Diane in full, Harry mumbled,
“I wasn’t sure I had the right house, you don’t have a number out front.”
He hoped that she couldn’t smell his fear—the wind would be blowing it towards her.
“Come in then. You want some coffee? I just put a fresh pot on.”
Seated at the table in her kitchen, Harry’s eyes were drawn to the frosty windows. He couldn’t see through them, but the crystalline shapes stuck to the panes grabbed his sight and refused any will the strength to turn away. Diane had just run out of the room to answer the phone. Her voice was a far off siren song, but the windows were nearer and singing louder. His reasons for coming here were pushed to the back of his mind by the sight of Diane in her doorway. He had never seen her outside of class, where they sat across from each other, the only two students who actually spoke. In those moments it felt as if the rest of the students, all the desks, even the floor and the ceiling were just vessels—the means by which he could be greeted by her fire-blue eyes. Those eyes kept him warm in the winter. He longed to curl up beside them and eventually fall into them, embraced by their flames.
Outside, on the fringe of the frosted windows, a cardinal flew up from below and balanced itself on a nearby branch. He could tell it was a cardinal by its hot red burning through the previously unforgiving white of the window. Harry wondered what it would be like to be one of the few birds left when the snow began to fall. Was it lonely or liberating? Could it be both at once? The cardinal flew away, and the white was restored to its former glory.

>>7778756
Sorry for shitty formatting. My word processor automatically double-spaces things, and I forgot when I copied and pasted.

Climbing those well-worn stone stairs, Harry counted the steps, knowing he would fall into familiarity with the final one. Three steps took him up six stairs to the deep brown mahogany front door of Diane’s house. Facing this side of the door had become commonplace for him, but he had never seen it from the other side. He paused at the door, his hand hovering around the knob, fingers shaking, bitten by the freezing air blowing from behind him. His watch read 4:15pm—he was late. Diane was expecting him at four, and now he was thrown from his seat in familiarity into a pit filled with the bodies of other familiar moments. Stepping back from the door, his foot planting itself in a murky puddle which splashed his ankle with speckled brown liquid, he could smell his anxiety, its breath hot on his neck, and he heard it whisper, Just go home. It’s not worth it—you know that. He pivoted on the heel sunk in the puddle and turned to face the wind, hair blown across his forehead from right to left and back again, until right and left no longer could describe its position. As he took the first stair, the knob turned and the door creaked open, letting the cold winter air run between Diane’s legs, which were not covered by her housecoat.
“Where are you going, Harry?”
Turning only his neck, and even then not far enough to see Diane in full, Harry mumbled,
“I wasn’t sure I had the right house, you don’t have a number out front.”
He hoped that she couldn’t smell his fear—the wind would be blowing it towards her.
“Come in then. You want some coffee? I just put a fresh pot on.”
Seated at the table in her kitchen, Harry’s eyes were drawn to the frosty windows. He couldn’t see through them, but the crystalline shapes stuck to the panes grabbed his sight and refused any will the strength to turn away. Diane had just run out of the room to answer the phone. Her voice was a far off siren song, but the windows were nearer and singing louder. His reasons for coming here were pushed to the back of his mind by the sight of Diane in her doorway. He had never seen her outside of class, where they sat across from each other, the only two students who actually spoke. In those moments it felt as if the rest of the students, all the desks, even the floor and the ceiling were just vessels—the means by which he could be greeted by her fire-blue eyes. Those eyes kept him warm in the winter. He longed to curl up beside them and eventually fall into them, embraced by their flames.
Outside, on the fringe of the frosted windows, a cardinal flew up from below and balanced itself on a nearby branch. He could tell it was a cardinal by its hot red burning through the previously unforgiving white of the window. Harry wondered what it would be like to be one of the few birds left when the snow began to fall. Was it lonely or liberating? Could it be both at once? The cardinal flew away, and the white was restored to its former glory.

Check 'em nignogs

>>7776896
I read Side Effects by him and I really liked it, but I haven't touched Without Feathers.

Short story collection in the classic existential humour style of Woody Allen? Yes pls.

>>7491519
the rhymes worked until last stanza. there's clear form here so i'd like to see a good rhyme in the last stanza.

>>7495095
i like the double meaning of "my typewriter is tombstone still"-- still as a tombstone, and acting as a tombstone for you

go to the river
it will take you
where you meet your dreams
the water will sing you to waking
it will swallow your dreams
whole
but you will find them again

down the stream

floating on their backs

staring at the sun

I can’t speak for tomorrow
with its casual permanence and
heavy presence
but today darkened eyes and froze
lips

Today awakened in a crack
of light through vinyl sheet
on my windowsill

Seated in formation I aged
and felt it
I performed wrinkling sleeves
and sweaty feet
I swallowed hiccup liquid and
bubbling juices
I spoke façade and eloquence
eating my fingernails

I sat in cool summer night air
swinging naked feet over my
ledge
I thought of jumping but couldn’t
scream

I made her cry and she
didn’t look back for she
wished I were dust or leaves
or the air instead

But I was me and I cried
confused tears on my ledge

Lip bit nails limp
chewed to beds.

Callous crown hiding
crying king — he knows
you hurt but not where.

Unbutton your blouse:
display the devil in you.
Force down pills and
reality — dripping from
fixtures and fingers and
firmament.

You don’t remember
last night — only red lights
and hollow sensing pushed
past emotion to royal ecstasy.
For him.
But you don’t remember that.
You remember getting your
fix and hating him and
you and that red light you
keep on while you sleep.

Eat your nails with
gnashing teeth and
makeout lips. Stare at
nothing, or
everything, or
both, with
eyes shut to nighttime
streetlamplight.

Blow smoke slurped from
a bummed cigarette — only
open your eyes when they
are drowning in the carbon
monoxide cloud.

Because when they’re open
you feel the earth’s tilt,
its spin, and you feel it
all over.

It hits you hard
in your skinned skinny jean knees.

It hits you harder in your chest.

You are bruising, my love.
You are bleeding, and breaking.

Is it you? Is the pressure
heavier than your fragile
eyelids can handle?

The smoke rises and
eases your burden,
lifting the corners of your mouth
with your glass eyelids.

I never know — are you
crying, or laughing?
Breathing, or dying?
Everything at once, or
nothing at all?
Do you feel when you
sleep? Do you dream?

While your brother
punches in plaster, while
your mother oozes regret,
while your father thinks
of leaving, do you dream?

While you lie face in pillow,
does the pressure destroy hopes
of leaving your breaking body?
Do you want to leave like your
father? Do you need something
other than this tilt, this imperfect
sphere of blue drowning and green suffocation?

The green is rotting to asphalt grey, my love,
the blue is rotting to trashbag brown.
And you feel it all over.
You feel it.

>>7486887
10/25
>The Odyssey
>The Stranger
>The Catcher in the Rye
>Slaughter-House Five
>The Death of Ivan Ilych
>The Great Gatsby
>Lolita
>Siddhartha
>Catch-22
>One Hundred Years of Solitude

I'm reading The Sailor Who Fell From Grace in the next couple weeks, along with Dorian Gray.

>>7484075
Understand Descartes, Hume, Kant, Schelling, then read Hegel's Encyclopaedia, then maybe you'll understand bits and pieces of his Phenomenology.

Leviathan by Hobbes. Such a condescending prick with the most annoying understanding of the English language. Really a shitty book.

>>7466821
I agree with you

>>7458768

>with your cold wind
describe this using stronger words -- with your biting wind, etc.

>trust me, i've tried
i don't like "trust me"

>your nights are so long
your nights don't seem to end, would be better -- "so" is a weak word

>I'd give him July if i could
I really like this line

>I don't know why I'm writing you/ you bitter bastard, you never write back
Too much "you," I would make it:
>I don't know why I'm writing/ you bitter bastard, you never write back

>it's so warm there
"i don't get cold there" sounds nicer and invokes december's cold

>is that why you're so cloudy and dark?
Get rid of "so"

>I'll give you my doctor, he's really good
Change to "I'll put you in touch with my doctor, he's great

Overall, it's a little weird with "Oh December" which feels a little 19th century, surrounded by relatively contemporary language and sentiments.

Critique my two:

>>7458750
>>7457467