Archived threads in /lit/ - Literature - 1179. page

yeah

>>9455805
lots of people are as close in all of those categories (some surpass him)

>>9455808

I agree with you in some point. What I think that sets Shakespeare apart (in literature at least) is his unsurpassed gift with language. He is the best poet of all time; it is wonderful just how much invention is packed in the texture of his plays. No other poet is as great in the creation of metaphors as him.

Is like James Wood said in an essay about Melville:

“When it comes to language, all writers want to be billionaires. All long to possess so many words that using them is a fat charity. To be utterly free in language, to be absolute commander of what you do not own—this is the greatest desire of any writer. Even the deliberate paupers of style—Hemingway, Pavese, late Beckett—have secret longings for riches, and strive to make their reductions seem like bankruptcy after wealth rather than fraud before it: Pavese translated Moby-Dick into Italian. Realists may protest that it is life, not words, that draws them as writers; yet language at rush hour is like a busy city. Language is infinite, but it is also a system, and so it tempts us with the fantasy that it is closed, like a currency or an orchestra. What writer does not dream of touching every word in the lexicon once?”

“In Moby-Dick, Herman Melville nearly touched every word once, or so it seems. Language is pressed and consoled in that book with Shakespearean agility. No other nineteenth-century novelist writing in English lived in the city of words in which Melville lived; they were suburbanites by comparison. No other novelist of that age could swim in the poetry of “the warmly cool, clear, ringing, perfumed, overflowing, redundant days ... .” And so, despite the usual biographical lamentations, despite our knowledge that Moby-Dick went largely unappreciated, that in 1876 only two copies of the novel were bought in the United States, that in 1887 it went out of print with a total sale of 3,180 copies, that these and other neglects narrowed Melville into bitterness and savage daily obedience as a New York customs inspector—despite all this, one says lucky Melville, not poor Melville. For, in writing Moby-Dick, he wrote the novel that is every novelist’s dream of freedom. It is as if he painted a patch of sky for the imprisoned.”

As for the criteria of productivity, variety and human understanding, I can name some examples of artists that are as great as him:

>Tolstoy
>Ingmar Bergman
>Akira Kurosawa

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>>9409476
Couldn't remember the title 11 days ago, but this is the closest I've got. Described as scaled in the book. Fair warning, woman writing under a male psuedonym with a half native american and all trouble protag.

What are you guys reading now?

That's one awful cover. Are there actually any good fantasy book cover? Most of them are completely awful. They must do this on purpose.

>>9455297
I feel like they'd fall apart if I tried to read them.

>>9455297
>Does /lit/ have Antiquarian books?
no but my grandfather left me like 100 franklins

id like to start a collection of 'old' modern library clothbounds

>>9455297
I own an 18th century edition of La Bruyère and a 1880s of Taine.

>>9454410

dank blog post

keep me posted on hot new developments

What does this have to do with the works of goncharov?

>>9454410
i kek

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>>9454270
absolute fucking blue pilled pure filtered shit.

self help is all a load of shit.

>imagine pic related giving out self help advice on how to get laid

>just be confident bro
>motivate yourself man!
>put yourself in a positive mindset bro
>just bee yourself

>>9454270
imagine a subhuman like vid related taking advice from how to win friends and influence people, imagine him in a social situation. How to win friends and influence people can be summarised in 5 bullet points, it disregards your genetics which plays a huge role on how you are treated and how you can influence someone.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bX2xRNHeF8

>>9454318
He's not too bad.

Best of what I've read is Breakfast of Champions, haven't read Mother Night.

I like Cat's Cradle a lot. I think it is the most succinct of his novels that I have read. Mother Night is great, but it's least like his other work which is something you may specifically like or dislike about it.

SO

Has there ever been a more posted about book on this board? The image attached has probably been posted about 100,000 times already

Find a different image. Please

I have yet to finish it but Gately's a fucking bad-ass. Hal's chapters are really fun, also. Both are characters we can model ourselves as I think.

>>9446356
Chomsky is a bum.

>>9446369
Get out. In case you can't read, Noam Chomsky rules the world, so show some respect.

>>9446356

The ultimate hypocrite. A self described anarchist with a an industry pumping out books and is invested in big pharma. Fuck this asshole.

>>9446139
Who's the dude in the pic?

>>9446160
it's your mom

>>9446139
>What turns you on?
fuck off

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https://pastebin.com/fDCvjeuv

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>>9431167
The Black Kings Burden

Whitey, whitey, watchu doin
Why yo appropriate ma shit
Whitey, whitey, we wuz rulin
And yo lived in som caveman pit

>>9431824
Incredible

He lays on his bed, listening to Fela Kuti, the record his Daddy bought him. The rhythm jitters out of the speaker, hypnotic. He has a whole heap of records now cuz his Daddy always brings him a couple when he comes round, which isn’t often, maybe once a month. Always artists that Taylor ain’t ever heard of before: First it was Kuti, then Sun Ra, then Pharoah Sanders, then Labi Siffre, Lonnie Liston Smith, Thelonious Monk, and so on. Each record like a slice of the cosmos pressed on wax, transporting him to places far beyond the rust-coloured streets and the sweltering, swollen cities, and up past the clouds and the blue of the sky. His Daddy only comes to give his Momma a bit of cash, and to see Taylor briefly; his Momma never wants the money though, at least she says she don’t, but his Daddy insists every time, taking the notes from his wallet and putting ‘em down on the table. He’s a wise looking man, Taylor’s Daddy; always knocks on Taylor’s door, three light knocks, and when Taylor opens it he’s always got a smile on his face, big gleaming teeth shining, and he never looks any older, not in all the years Taylor’s been on this earth, and he stands there a moment staring down at Taylor, before presenting him with this month’s collection of records. Taylor always scans through ‘em, inspecting each one. They always have these covers with a man on the front, instrument in hand, some of ‘em all colourful and psychedelic, some just a picture, all of ‘em looking serious and cool and wise; men who look a bit like Taylor’s Daddy. And every time he says ‘don’t tell your Momma’ and smiles an even wider smile, and rubs a hand through Taylor’s hair. And then he walks out again and closes the door. Taylor don’t play the records straight away, he places them softly and carefully on his bed and goes to the window and opens it up as far as it will go so it scrapes the metal grill surrounding it, and he sticks his head out to look into the sizzling street, the baking sun hanging overhead, to watch his Daddy walk out the house to his car, his Momma’s voice carrying from the doorway after him: ‘you ain’t gonna keep coming here, you ain’t no father’ she says, and Taylor can smell the musty funky smell of weed as it drifts up through his window from the spliff his Momma’s just lit, and his Father don’t look back as he slams the car door with a ringing thud and then leaves, the car’s engine rumbling as he pulls away. ‘Listen naw’ Taylor’s Momma always says, ‘Yo Father ain’t a good man. Maybe you think he is cus he comes round here all nice and dresses all smart but let me tell you he ain’t shit. He ain’t raised you, I raised you. He give us money cus that’s the least that he should do for us.’ She says this as she lights another spliff. ‘Yo Father’s a loser, you understanding me, nigga?’

>>9461570
absolutely disgusting

>>9461570
go back to /r9k/

looks pretty pseudy

I've tried reading his Sonnets once

Never again

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>>9461358
i only read titus andronicus because i am an edgelord

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>>9461358
Also in need of a better Coriolanus and All's Well cover, not that the rest are set in stone.

>>9461324
A Day in the Life of OP

>>9461334
I was actually tested for autism when I was young because I was shy and withdrawn but was found to not have autism, which kind of explains my fascination with aspergers

My diary desu.

>>9461161
Good for textbooks but not good for literature

>>9461166

Why?

>>9461208
Speed reading doesn't allow you the mental space to actively engage with the deep patterns, ideas, and aesthetic features of literature. I'm not that anon and I don't think it's any good for textbooks either, at least not ones in any subject involving critical thinking or complex systems. The only time speed reading is useful is when the content of what you're reading is incredibly simple - too simple to waste your time reading in the first place, if you don't have to for some external reason.