Archived threads in /lit/ - Literature - 1658. page

it's one of those novels that would be actually quite good if a good editor just took a scalpel to the thing

as it stands, it has too many unsightly growths

Its so easy to criticize this book. Its more or less a creepypasta before they were a thing. Its wholly unsatisfying to read, and barely ties up its loose ends when you get through all those 700 or so pages. The hidden message is even a cringe worthy 'the whole story was an insane persons fantasy' thing. I still enjoyed reading it though and it really got in my head. I read about 300 pages one day, and had a really awful nightmare about finding myself trapped in the house.

Great reading experience. I can't be fucked to do some of the more autistic puzzles that are supposedly in the book, but as a book within a book within a book or whatever the fuck it's pretty fantastic, nice descent into madness and I always appreciate when something doesn't try to explain everything away. You say loose ends, I say it doesn't need to be tied up. Look at a book like the Southern Reach trilogy, where the first two parts are great because of the atmosphere and weirdness and where the finale shits the bed because it's 300 pages of explaining every single fucking thing. The heavy handed metaphors work well enough and it balances fear, loneliness, and fun for a great book.

Also some top tier design, stuff like running down the endless hallway with more and more doors while you're turning the pages faster and faster because there's fewer and fewer words was a legitimately great gimmick.

John le Carre is exactly what you're looking for. Literally everyone fucking loves le Carre and he's even considered fancy/literary and non-genre.

Try Spy Who Came In From The Cold first, and then maybe Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. It's basically just spy thriller porn that isn't even schlocky.

>>9196546

This is almost the exact post I was going to make.

Only, after reading these and the rest of the Karla Trilogy, watch the BBC's Smiley's People and Oldman's Tinker Tailor film. Then back to Le Carre

>>9196546
>>9196539
>>9196566

Also came here to say this. Particularly "Spy who Came in from the Cold" is a must read. It's a beautiful book that isn't so much a spy novel as a novel that happens to have spies as the central characters.

Definitely check out the movie as well once you've finished the novel. Richard Burton is amazing in it.

those are some of quite famous novels i think i read at least 20-30

About 30

That's not a terribly good list though:

>Based on curated lists from The Guardian, Flavorwire and more, suggestions from readers on Goodreads, Quora and Reddit, and picks from philosophical fiction authors like Khaled Hosseini, Irvin D. Yalom, Rebecca Goldstein and Daniel Quinn

Basically reddit and the guardian need to be destroyed for the good of western civilization, and all users/readers of the aforesaid websites ought to be placed in "re-education" camps.

>>9196482
37. Not sure about this list, though. Science Fiction is over-represented (especially PKD). Too much meme shit like Ayn Rand and YA stuff like The Giver and The Alchemist. What are the criteria for a "philosophical novel"? (e.g. What qualifies To The Lighthouse by Woolf, but nothing by Faulkner or Joyce makes the cut?)

what happened to this board

"Jam" looks interesting just because it's premise but I haven't read it.

>>9196519

/v/ /tv/ /pol/ and /a/ invaded except all the oldfags from /lit/ left so there is nobody to put newfags in their place.

Imagine being so infantile that the politics of another person affects your appreciation of their work:

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>>9196446

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>>9196453

Imagine being so infantile that the work of another person affects your appreciation of their politics.

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>>9196403
Denmarkfag here.
>Inger Christensen

>>9196403
>Whom

>>9196403
French: Duc de St. Simon

>>9196369
Sounds like a good plan. Just transition eventually.

>>9196369
Seems like a waste of time and energy. You are conditioned to read at the same pace as the guy narrating the audiobook and focusing at both reading and listening takes up more focus.

>>9196652
Ironically no. I can actually focus better. Keep in mind that I only do this with any other language besides my native one.

I don't know, I don't read sideways text.

>>9196337
What comes to mind is Nietzsche's idea of etetnal recurrence-- I'm not familiar with Thrash and Burn (sounds like a Stooge's album). Tales of Future-Past is of course a classic Moody Blues LP.

>>9196391
Thank you man. That makes sense

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is it a philosopher hat

>>9196190
this nigga just didnt give a fuck haha

>>9196190
>bowing down to Islam two hundred years before the refugees even come

The Scottish truly are cucks

>>9196185
>latvian /lit/

>>9196185
Lāčplēsis is the only option really, i enjoyed it

>>9196174
The very last passages before the end of Beyond the Zero I liked.

The final coherent Slothrop scene, tons of passages in The Counterforce that I liked.

>>9196174
>whoa

>Ayabbadabbadoo as old Fred Flintstones sez, my dude. We be just a floating rock in the sky goin' 'round the Sun. And like that old berd, that's the werd, ya herd?

https://youtu.be/L44Ml8K_mDg?t=3h54m

I think he might actually be a superior genius to Shakespeare.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CNBIJj1CFM
For me, its ^^ gotta be top 50 (maybe top 30) musical moments/conceptions I have ever encountered

>>9196103
Paul Beatty

>>9196103
J.K. Rowling

Philip Roth

>>9196087
don't make posts like this

Try Hunger Games, considering you can't be older than 15 (your emoji outed you, dear)

>>9196115
don't samefag like this

>>9196073
I'm nowhere near that deep

>>9196073
Every once in a while I'll wak eup and before being fully conscious I'll just realize ''fuck, I'm this guy''.
It may be a banal realization, but only in those moments I aknowledge in its entirety.

>>9196343
Sort of this but more like, "Fuck, this is my life." My life is always more exciting and less depressing in dreams.