>because philosophy
>best mythology
>best epics
>best ethics
>best tragedies
Give me one single reason why I should ever move beyond the Greeks.
The fact that you're posting on the internet in English means you already have
>>9794839
Later thinkers better encapsulated the spirits of their times. The Greeks are great, but many modern thinkers like Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and Hegel, are appropriate in their own ways for understanding our place in history and the current world around us.
>>9794839
Not enough works.
Hi /lit/
I'm Scandinavian, and finished university in 2014. My master's thesis got the highest possible grade. I'm now trying to get a PhD position, but naturally it's difficult within the humanities, not least since the positions are fully-funded and the competition is strong.
I have a friend who struggled IMMENSELY with his master's degree in sociology. It took him around a year (we have 4 months to finish our master's thesis in my country), and he got stressed, and had severe physical reactions to the stress etc etc. A few days ago he landed a PhD position, somehow, and I'm envious as hell, and I don't know how to cope with it. I don't think he deserves it, and then I feel bad for not being able to support my friend and be happy for him. His position is in an irrelevant country, and apparently they were excited about a) his nationality, b) his ability to speak and write English, and c) his willingness to spend 4 years in their irrelevant country. His ability to research and do the job is entirely secondary, and it's the complete opposite when I apply: all they care about is the research.
Still. How do I deal with this? What do I read? Fucking academia. There's just too many qualified people here. The effort I have to put into every PhD application is insane.
>>9794718
>His position is in an irrelevant country
What country?
You sound like a good little worker bee who is inwardly consumed with envy, resentment, and rage, so I'm sure you'll fit right in in academia.
t. grad student at top 10. not in an irrelevant country.
>>9794718
You sound like a faggotstriverpoor.
>Reading a translation older than 30 years.
bugs... easy on the amanitas
What am I supposed to do when the text has no other full translation outside of expensive academic books?
>reading translations
Any of you fellas listen to good podcasts about books/literature? Listened to a good Dostoevsky podcast today and want to find some more. Been doing some kinda menial work lately and trying to find good stuff to listen to while I do it. Podcasts about philosophy or history or whatever welcome too.
Jordan Peterson
>>9794464
Don't know about literature but I like some history podcasts:
I've been listening to "The History of Rome" podcast by Mike Duncan. It's "finished" meaning the last episode came out years ago and there won't be any new ones but with 179 episodes it's not like I'll be finished anytime soon.
I would love a similar podcast about Ancient Greece but haven't really found anything yet.
Also Dan Carlin's Hardcore History is alright, although he takes forever between episodes (though they are usually like an hour long, I think the one episode was even over 5h) and his older episodes aren't free (meaning you'll have to download them from piratebay). Unless he has a series going on, he is also all over the place and your interest in an episode could vary wildly depending on what time period or culture he focuses on.
"levar burton reads" has nice and well narrated short stories
BBC Radio has a podcast called books and authors but it's mostly interviews with current writers
there are also loads of book clubs podcasts around where you may find an interesting episode on a book you just finished
Never read his works. What should I should I read?
>>9794207
The Sun Also Rises
Francis Macomber
Big Two-Hearted River
Hills Like White Elephants
A Clean, Well-Lighted Place
On the Quay at Smyrna
Well you said yourself we should never read his works.
So read anything except him I guess.
>>9794207
Start with The Old Man and the Sea. After that either read A Farewell to Arms or The Sun Also Rises.
Is this as comfy as everyone says it is? I haven't read much stuff from Europe, especially literature from the early twentieth century. Will most of the context go over my head? What should I read prior to The Magic Mountain? Anything quick online? Thanks /lit/.
>>9794192
so you decided on magic mountain instead of JR?
>>9794192
Maybe read death in Venice first to get used to his style
MM is 10/10 comfy as expected though. Part of it is you feel complicit, like you're on the mountain with him and don't want to leave
>>9794203
>like you're on the mountain with him and don't want to leave
He keeps you there with his magic.
Reminder all the greats are obsessed with their craft
If you're not put in 3 hours daily at the very least, you're never ever going to make it as a writer or creative
>>9794152
>t. useless advice from pleb who never accomplished anything of importance
>>9794158
Having problems facing your own lack of effort, eh?
>>9794164
nah, i'm a genius. effortless reams of divine, mellifluous prose rest within this mind, within these hands. the struggles you prescribe are for those without unmitigated brilliance, i dare not apply balm for that which needs no salve.
Hardcover or paperback? Which does /lit/ prefer?
>>9794151
Paperback, but only trade paperbacks. Only exception is pulpy stuff. Hardcovers are heavy, bulky, and they depreciate very quickly.
Hardcover.
I hate when paperbacks start to fold and tear as soon as you buy them.
Like this (pic related)
Digital
I'm going to write a 5 novel series.
It is about a DIA analyst who becomes involved in a conspiracy when his best friend, an FBI agent, becomes the target of a CIA mind-control test and dies. His best friend's death sets him on a path to uncovering the truth about this conspiracy.
Give me advice on how to keep this from being trite and cliched. I want it to be like James Bond but with deep contemporary themes and realism.
At the end of the story, he realises that he was the villain all along...
sounds impossible with that premise
>>9794115
Actually I planned on killing him off un-heroically and just ending there without an funeral/is he alive or not? bullshit.
Is "Seemed easier than just to wait around and die" the most existentialist statement ever made?
No.
>>9794075
At least get the lyric right if you're going to make a shitty thread about it.
>>9794075
No. Existentialism does not equal edgy fatalistic nihilism.
>>9791001
>once again, nothing is more cringe than LARPing revolution.
Sentry duty is a revolution in a country without sentries. I'm interested in both bypassing the gates unnoticed and having those sentries paid well.
>then I can get back to my art projects, my sublimation
Hello, goodbye. See you then.
>is beauty walking through the door any time soon? most def not.
The question is whether you have the capacity to have gratitude for the beauty that is there, knowing that without a small community of friends to share in that gratitude, you may go mad. Because you need to integrate that shit in this ridiculous symbolic mess you've made. You don't know beauty except the container its said to be held within, but if you unlock that container you must have the community around you to withstand what happens within that act of recognising true awe.
>but onscreen? it's Spartans vs Colossus all day.
Try the sentries. There are no better heroes currently, though I guess they aren't heroes actually. They are absurd in there quest that goes nowhere but the gates, back home to the family, and back to the gates. They are not detectives, they are those who follow rules, and only break them when they are villains or heroes. The consequence is boring. But they are tragic and beautiful. The absurdity might be too painfully "arty", but I think the aesthetics of a gate could help assuage some nerves for the time being.
>Film and Terror. never gets dull.
It gets dull. If you have a sense of the use of music in film and a taste for good literature, you can come to see the failings of film. It will come to wane, I'm sure, within my life. Especially if a new era of spectacle persists with socialising everyone within a pseudo-highschool experience, with the added bonus of random pep rallys and occasional explosions.
>Land's capital as the driving force is so so ridiculous. But the conversation is kept in check so that none can name the gods again. Been there, done that. Sold the merch. Got lots in the garage still left over from the 20th century.
>But there's also something else happening there.
A portal like a mouth that could either be a whale ready to take us to a city or a dragon ready to burn us all to the ground? I suspect what is there finds no occasion to be noticed, and so is likely not to have that type of thing to be concerned about it, that thing I occasionally call The Humane Parasite.
>an aestheticized polis.
Back to the gate. The interesting thing here is that the sentry stands not just between the outsiders and palace or what have you, but also the fleeing tyrants who do the gate harm. A thousand images of the arch would give you an idea of the ease at which the symbol could be loaded in many ways to expose your crimes, or whatever the fuck it is your self needs to legitimise.
>*tests,* you know. about that. overcoming. this kind of stuff. we're a long way from meme politics.
puzzles like the cup and ball that Rousseau talked about?
>>9793902
hey... kids.. wanna play a language game
>>9793902
Yea maybe go build a house
If this was a novel it would he considered a masterpiece and one of the most important events in modern literary history. But just because it's a film, pretentious faggots on /lit/ will dismiss it.
>inb4 dude spiderman lol
1. Its "Spider-Man", not "Spiderman".
2. Not an argument.
>>9793824
i'm game, elaborate.
sell me this concept. flesh it. flesh it!
>>9793834
Have you seen the film?
>>9793836
Weak start.
> The writing was dreadful; the book was terrible. As I read, I noticed that every time a character went for a walk, the author wrote instead that the character stretched his legs’. I began marking on the back of an envelope every time that phrase was repeated. I stopped only after I had marked the envelope several dozen times. I was incredulous. Rowling’s mind is so governed by cliches and dead metaphors that she has no other style of writing. Legs.. easy on the stretching
Was he right?
>>9793813
how can he talk about mommy like that?
>can't formulate an argument
>take an author's argument out of context and pretend it's my own
>>9793827
If I sucked the milk from her teats would I become a famous author?
What are your favorite biographies (or autobiographies)? I've been reading pic related and I've been so engrossed I have volumes 2 and 3 ready to go.
>>9793695
Brian Boyd's two-parter on Nabokov.
Schoenbaum's Shakespeare's Lives and Documentary Life.
Edel's five volumes on Henry James.
Nicholl's biography of Leonardo.
my diary desu
>>9793695
Holy fuck what? I was about to begin a thread looking for a Theodore Roosevelt biography!
Is this good? Does it touch on the founding of the national parks because I've been wanting to see what it was like in the oval office when he decided to do that
>discover a good author
>tfw I found out that he was a degenerate druggie homosexual
>tfw feel involuntary disgust when reading his works because it was written by a subhuman degenerate piece of shit whom I would gladly put before a firing squad if given the chance
Why are there so many fucking faggots in literature? Fuck this life.
>>9793662
>le buttfucking is ok
I sometimes wonder if Redditors truly understand gay people. Not the abstract notion of "gay people", an "oppressed class". But the existence of so-called "human beings" who feel a seemingly irresistible urge to have sexual relations with other persons of the same sex.
Gay men STICK THEIR DICKS in other mens' BUTTS. Explain to me why exactly they don't deserve the death penalty. God, I want to throw up.
>>9793660
you should probably just kill yourself
>discover a good author
>tfw find out that they're a baptist christian
Absolutely disgusting