/lit/ newfag. I just read The Stranger by Camus and i really liked it. I identified with Meursault's character : his apathy, his dissociation and his passiveness. Any books similar to this one?
>you're supposed to hate him
I also enjoyed the stranger and empathized with mersault
we share certain traits, we're both intelligent nihilistic and with a wicked sense of humor
Which gospel is your favourite?
>>9510289
The Qur'an
The protocols of the elders of Zion
Luke.
>when automation is 99% succesful succeeds
Any books or readings on this matter?
The Machine Stops by E. M. Forster
>>9510288
I'm imagining fat people doing nothing while another species attacks. Totally worthless against our weapons.
Anyways, human sexuality is a thing so don't expect people to do absolutely nothing all day like in wall-e.
Player Piano, but it's a pretty weak argument against it from someone with a clear bias.
Also, Piano's automation is not true automation, it's just mass factorization. Still needs humans to do most of the maintenance and control work. So maybe don't read it, it's not entirely fit for purpose.
I unironically like him more now. What a character
>He had avoided straight math classes at Amherst, afraid they might lower his grade point average.
>But Wallace was still interested in the ideas behind fiction, so he signed up his first semester for a class on the history of the English language, which prompted an attempt to write a story in Old English, and another class on literary theory that focused on Derrida’s Of Grammatology. In the last [seminar on literary theory at Arizona], when another participant called Derrida a waste of time, Wallace got so mad that everyone thought there would be a fight.
>His scholarship having ended, that fall Wallace had to teach. The prospect did not delight him. In his audio letter to his Amherst friends on arriving, he had declared the undergraduates at UA to be “roughly of an intelligence level of fairly damaged person.”
>In his undergraduate class, Wallace was kind to the clueless but cruel to anyone with pretensions. When a student claimed that her sentences were “pretty,” he scribbled lines from her manuscript on the blackboard and challenged, “Which of you thinks this is pretty? Is this pretty? And this?” He continued to battle any young man who reminded him of his younger self. When one student wowed his classmates with a voicy, ironic short story, he took him outside the classroom and told him he had “never witnessed a collective dick-sucking like that before.” Wallace promised to prevent the “erection of an ego-machine” and strafed the student with criticism for the rest of the semester.
>He was unusually self-confident, perhaps buoyed by a sense that Infinite Jest was on target. “You should know I am really really smart,” he told the English department members who met him. He sent a résumé with his publications and on the second page added entries for “REVIEWS IF ANYBODY CARES…” and “PRIZES &c (IF ANYBODY CARES…).”…During a question-and-answer session, when a faculty member asked why they should hire him, he responded, “Who else?” Then the faculty committee went out with him to a local Chinese restaurant, where he told the department char, Charlie Harris, a Barth expert, that Barth was dead.
>He’s [Camus's] very clear, as a thinker, and tough—completely intolerant of bullshit. It makes my soul feel clean to read him.
>When he told her [Mary Karr] he had put certain scenes into Infinite Jest because they were “cool,” she responded, “that’s what my fucking five year old says about Spiderman.”
>reminder that if you're not a Derrida scholar, you'll never make it
he's all the failings of /lit/ collected and personified
>>9510265
>but cruel to anyone with pretensions
No wonder he killed himself.
People who listen to audiobooks are the downfall of modern society.
>>9510237
>implying some soulless businessman listening to 1491 in his car is intellectually relevant
People who use social media and are the downfall of modern society.
Autistic shitposting teenagers are the downfa... Actually nevermind.
>Chickie says "I love to read too, Anon!"
>I ask her what books she likes
>Proceeds to list off YA novels
Every fucking time...
>>9509756
You've never spoken to a woman anon. admit it.
>>9509769
I'll admit, most women don't even consider reading a hobby, but for the one's I've known that do, my OP stands.
>>9509756
This is why I don't want to make literature an important aspect of my life. Most people I try to start conversations regarding it with will be absolutely disgusting plebians.
Name a comfier book. (Protip: you can't.)
>>9509456
Christopher Morley books. David Garnett books. Anthony Powell books including the epic. M. F. K. Fisher's pentad beginning with The Gastronomical Me.
Many Auden essays, Benjamin essays, Constable's Memoires, Delacroix's Journal, France's novels esp. At the Sign of the Reine Pedauque, Goethe's Italian Journey, Hugo's Ninety-three, Isherwood passim., JOSEPH JOUBERT's Notebooks, Kafka's Amerika, Leopardi's Zibaldone (comfy, comfy, comfy), Melville's Redburn or even Pierre -- or, Marvel's Reveries of a Bachelor, Nichol's wonderful book on Thomas Nashe as well as his The Creature in the Map, Orwell's Essays, Proust, Quine's Quiddities are comfy, Ruskin passim esp The Stones of Venice, Tocqueville's Democracy, 2nd part, Underhill passim, Veblen! Voltaire's Histories, Wordsworth's Prelude, no X comes to mind given the criteria, Yourcenar's Hadrian, Zola's Nana.
All are at least as comfy, most are better.
>>9509456
>genre fiction
no thank you
>>9509456
I have an unread copy of this some girl gave me. Should I actually read it?
What is philosophy's endgame?
Please don't get me wrong, I don't mean this in an strictly pragmatic, utilitarian way, but what's the point of all the apparatus built around studying it?
Year after year, tens of thousands of freshmen enter college They're taught about logic, old and new philosophy; they learn. After graduating, many will move away from it completely in a professional setting and do whatever, the rest will study even more and, maybe, get a tenure so he can, too, teach more people in the future. Maybe he will publish some papers, maybe he will publish some papers that are significant. Very rarely he will publish something that's truly significant and will change the way we think philosophy. But so what? What have the Deleuzes, Foucaults and Heideggers in history achieved?
Thinking about this reminded me of Hesse's Glass Bead Game. What's the point? Is philosophy a fucking hobby?
It's endgame is to establish communism.
>>9509492
Lmao
>>9509406
There is no endgame, or end state. Philosophy makes no product but a stronger mind. As long as economy allows leisure, humans will use philosophy to interpret their zeigeist. Every generation will build upon the last, and some will break new ground, but every philosophy is important as representative of its origin.
To call philosophy a hobby says more about you than about Deleuze.
I've been listening to a lot of Alan Watts' talks lately, and I want to start reading him. Before I go in blind, I have a couple questions:
Where do I start?
How do you feel about his work?
>where do I start
Up butt
>How do you feel about his work
Poop
>>9509085
wish i had seen this early. Start with the way of Zen. But I honestly think lectures are the way to go. He is a much better speaker then he is author. He can get his ideas across through text but there is just so much that gets lost in translation.
Alan Watts is trash.
He's an entrainer at best, no actual value when it comes to Eastern thought. If anything he's a detriment.
Name a more beautiful/thought-provoking sentence in the history of literature/philosophy that is as full of brevity as this one.
>>9508661
For sale: cum-covered baby shoes
moist
>>9508661
>Jesus began to weep.
The NRSV is starting to really get on my nerves desu.
Which philosophers address this important issue?
Jesus Christ, The neetchan, Stirner
>Good
>Evil
Now THIS is spooky vol. 7
If you actually think long and hard without being weak you will realise that the destruction of all life is the rational way to go.
This is one of the reaons people are worried about creating AI since they suspect it will rationally conclude to delete us.
So, I have the first edition of "Ressurection" by Leo Tolstoy. It has a brief passage on the inside signed by Tolstoy himself. How much is this worth?
>>9508321
self-bump. I'm poor halp
>>9508321
If authentic it could sell in the mid teens. Resurrection isn't his most well known book but signed first editions are a good bet. First print would be better though. Another problem, even if authentic, would be if the note is personalized. If so that greatly decreases the value to most collectors.
t. owner of a handful of 100K+ books
I struggle to believe that's real
Hey /lit/, this is my first time visiting the board.
So lately I've been thinking a lot about feeling ignorant. As life goes by I just get the sense that my knowledge of the world is completely laconic and fragmented. I'm from a shitty country and my parents are lower class factory workers so growing up my education wasn't the best and I had little incentive to learn. I could probably count on my fingers the amount of books I read in my lifetime. Whenever I think about stuff like politics and economy I just don't feel qualified taking a stance because I have such a poor understanding of it.
But hey, the fact that I'm self aware at least counts for something, r-right? I'd like to change but it feels overwhelming not knowing how to go about it.
How does one approach getting the essentials of everything? I would just like to have a basic understanding of worldwide history that touches on the development of economy, politics, philosophy, science and art. At this point my comprehension of ancient egypt doesn't go beyond lolpyramidsandpharoes, Im not sure which century shakespear or mozart are from, I don't know how the hell europe transitioned from philosophers wearing togas to kings living in castles and I have zero clue what the fuck goes on in central asia.
So yeah, are there any materials (free or pirateable because I'm poor) that have this sort of basic holistic approach at culture fit for a noob? Preferably stuff that follows a timeline rather than jump around and tackles more than western civilization. No need for much detail, If there's a specific subject that picks my interest i'll research it individually more thoroughly.
Also, I have poor discipline, a short attention span and my life feels busy enough already so it's gonna be a struggle to create room for acquiring knowledge. Do you have any advice or tips to enable me to learn?
I do have a period of about 2-3 hours daily while wageslaving when I'm able to wear headphones so if there's some sort of audiobook I could listen to it would be even better.
tl;dr: I'm uneducated, recommend me things that provide an overall basic grasp of all facets of culture throughout history rather than heavy literature that tackles a specific subject in detail.
Help a pleb out /lit/.
Where are you from, dude? What's your native language?
This is a literature board, not a self-help board.
>>9507252
Look at all this vanity
Who was right?
Peterson outed himself as a pea-brained child and Harris didn't even bother to try making a point. Nobody was right, Sam gave up.
Peterson because, in order to learn to think, humans were first selected for millions of years in dangerous environments. Thus when Sam argues that objective rationality trumps darwinism, he forgets a major part of the human condition that shaped what it means to be a human.
>>9506684
Harris is simple minded and rigid to have a conversation over the concept of truth. Peterson was naive and too optimistic in his exceptions with someone as simple minded as harris.
Goodreads friend thread?
I wish I had people in my immediate life to interact with on Goodreads. I have a guy named Lorenzo added from here, and he seems okay and reads a bit, but I feel like he's the template for anyone else I might add from here.
>>9506726
Jesus fucking christ you just spoke my mind. I have begged about 20 people irl to use it and non of them do, even the ones who read or want to read more books. It's my existential crisis because I would have an easier time finishing books or living if people did. And what the fuck here's my GR: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/21146342-jeremiah-carlson
>>9506745
>Lorenzo has us both added