Hi /lit/. Somewhat of a newfag to literature here. Can you recommend to me a more intellectually challenging version of Kurt Vonnegut? I like his writing style, but I'd like something with a little more depth.
>>9712786
My diary desu
pynchon gass barth
>>9712786
Little more DEPTH?! H-H-HOW DARE YOU! SHAME ON YOU!
What are some books for smart, sophisticated people such as myself?
I'm mostly a connoisseur of videogames and comicbooks, but I've decided to branch out to this new medium to expand my horizons.
Coming from that direction?
Start with Maus,
then read Mark Twains Short stories,
then through George Orwells 1984,
Albert Camus' the Stranger,
on to Thus spake Zarathustra by Nietzsche,
and finish with anything by Theodor Adorno.
If you want to go super hard you could go to Heidegger or Hegel.
>>9712707
This strikes me as weird, but having come of age in the '90's and not the '00's I'll say nothing against it.
I will say that after Nietzsche Adorno's Minima should be broached for two reasons- a. it's Nietzsche-esque in form, yet b. with an orientation (moderately ethical) foreign to Nietzsche.
Then on to Hegel's very clear Lectures on the History of Philosophy (as a way of 'starting with the greeks,' or in lieu of) before tackling the Phenomenology.
Why am I laughing?
>>9712791
>Why am I laughing?
because you tried to substitute starting with teh greeks
why dont you learn to run before learning to walk while we're at it
What did he mean by this?
mystical love letter to napoleon
>>9712633
> I for my part have devoted a good deal of time to the understanding of the Hegelian philosophy, I believe also that I understand it tolerably well, but when in spite of the trouble I have taken there are certain passages I cannot understand, I am foolhardy enough to think that he himself has not been quite clear.
dialectic fuck yeah
Read a book tonight!
reading is for losers
>>9712598
spoken like a true spic
>>9712598
While I was skinny dipping in the forums of the deep web, I came across an author who wrote books on incest, bestiality, and weird ass crazy shit like it, I am disgusted by what he writes but I would like to see the history of the author himself. His name (most likely alias) was Ted Leonard. If anyone actually wants to research this for me I would be thankful.
>>9712580
>research this for me
>research this
>for me
uhhhhh?
>>9712580
do your own homework nigger
>>9712580
>browsing the deep web
>too lazy todo basic research
So im fairly young and im very intrested in human behaviour and the mind. I have been exposed to games music and movies through out my teens and they sparked the interest on human behaviour but i believe that books will let me explore the subject more. So i just think that i should not be wasting time time doing useless shit and should be expanding my culture. I have not read many books and i want to get into them so my question is what are some essential books and as previously stated i would prefer books about human behaviour but i would also like kust great books in general like lovecraftian stuff and good horror novels.
>>9712563
best start with the greeks
>>9712564
What is it about?
>>9712579
literally and unironically everything
everything starts with the greeks, its not a meme
>Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth—
>for your love is more delightful than wine.
>Pleasing is the fragrance of your perfumes;
>your name is like perfume poured out.
>No wonder the young women love you!
>Take me away with you—let us hurry!
>Let the king bring me into his chambers.
>mfw the bible tries to be sexy
why do people take this trash seriously?
>>9712539
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Song+of+Songs+1&version=DRA
read the literal translation instead m8
>>9712539
You sound pretty immature.
I'm sorry that your love life hasn't worked out up until now, but you really shouldn't get so triggered at the Bible.
Song of songs has some excellent relationship advice interweaved throughout its verses, all while being pretty well written and romantic.
Is it possible to learn a language at an older age? I mean being fluent and somewhat eloquent with minimum flaws at drawing words out of your memory. I guess being in your twenties after a spending your tenage years drug binging and having English as your second language doesn't help much. but I'd love to hear from some of you people that tried practicing a foreign language after adolescence, was it hard? How long did it take you to get the basics? Do you still find yourselves struggling?
>>9712530
I did learn french at 22, but it's certainly sloppy and not as good as my english, which i learnt at age of 12.
The accent stays.
>>9712532
Yeah I'm not even getting into the accent subject. Also French requires parctice at nasal pronounciation which is really hard for non natives.
Can you read books without grabbing a dictionary a few times each page? Can you manage a decent conversation without coming off as an Idiot?
>>9712530
Gosh, what a stupid thread full of dumb quest questions. It really all depends on you and your talents. If you have a good ear, acquiring a proper accent (not necessarily native tier) is more than feasible. It roughly takes 4 to 6 years to start reading (with a dictionary of course) more or less comfortably, and I'm talking long novels as long as the target language is of European origin.
No this was
>>9712529
master piece
>>9712529
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USvMWm-ZqvQ
Are there any books that will help me decide what I want to do with my life?
I finished grad school this past year and now I have no idea what to do. I don't want to work, I just want to read books all day t b h with you guys.
Your diary, desu
>>9712346
We're in a similar situation. I consider myself semi-retired. Focus on philosophy. Nourish thy soul.
>>9712536
I feel like I need it. I'm depressed as fuck.
What was the last book you gave up without finishing? Picrelated for me. It would not end
This bucket of swill. Less than 50 pages in it becomes misunderstood sad sodomite nonsense.
>>9712458
It gets even worse.
>>9712338
Wind up bird Chronicle. I couldn't make myself care
Why was he the only writer that could describe the misery of the working class, without sounding like a condescending prick? All other socialist writers write like they're dsescribing alien beings who are hopelessly below them in intelligence. But Orwell seems to really empathize with how working class conditions affect the psyche. At the end of the day he still seems them as just normal people. And yet no other socialist writer seems to capture this quality like him.
>The basis of their diet, therefore, is white bread and margarine, corned beef, sugared tea, and potatoes — an appalling diet. Would it not be better if they spent more money on wholesome things like oranges and wholemeal bread or if they even, like the writer of the letter to the New Statesman, saved on fuel and ate their carrots raw? Yes, it would, but the point is that no ordinary human being is ever going to do such a thing. The ordinary human being would sooner starve than live on brown bread and raw carrots. And the peculiar evil is this, that the less money you have, the less inclined you feel to spend it on wholesome food. A millionaire may enjoy breakfasting off orange juice and Ryvita biscuits; an unemployed man doesn’t. Here the tendency of which I spoke at the end of the last chapter comes into play. When you are unemployed, which is to say when you are underfed, harassed, bored, and miserable, you don’t want to eat dull wholesome food. You want something a little bit ‘tasty’. There is always some cheaply pleasant thing to tempt you. Let’s have three pennorth of chips! Run out and buy us a twopenny ice-cream! Put the kettle on and we’ll all have a nice cup of tea! That is how your mind works when you are at the P.A.C. level.'
>They have all the leisure in the world; why don’t they sit down and write books? Because to write books you need not only comfort and solitude — and solitude is never easy to attain in a working-class home — you also need peace of mind. You can’t settle to anything, you can’t command the spirit of hope in which anything has got to be created, with that dull evil cloud of unemployment hanging over you.
>She looked up as the train passed, and I was almost near enough to catch her eye. She had a round pale face, the usual exhausted face of the slum girl who is twenty-five and looks forty, thanks to miscarriages and drudgery; and it wore, for the second in which I saw it, the most desolate, hopeless expression I have ever-seen. It struck me then that we are mistaken when we say that’ It isn’t the same for them as it would be for us,’ and that people bred in the slums can imagine nothing but the slums. For what I saw in her face was not the ignorant suffering of an animal. She knew well enough what was happening to her — understood as well as I did how dreadful a destiny it was to be kneeling there in the bitter cold, on the slimy stones of a slum backyard, poking a stick up a foul drain-pipe.
>>9712325
>All other socialist writers write like they're dsescribing alien beings who are hopelessly below them in intelligence
Geez, I wonder why.
Because he had Aspergers Syndrome, the only way to have a chance at examining the world without the influence of pure ideology. A king among spergs, if you will. His kind satisfies a crucial niche among the intellectual progress of humanity.
>In his tramping days, he did domestic work for a time. His extreme politeness was recalled by a member of the family he worked for; she declared that the family referred to him as "Laurel" after the film comedian. With his gangling figure and awkwardness, Orwell's friends often saw him as a figure of fun. Geoffrey Gorer commented "He was awfully likely to knock things off tables, trip over things. I mean, he was a gangling, physically badly co-ordinated young man. I think his feeling [was] that even the inanimate world was against him ..." When he shared a flat with Heppenstall and Sayer, he was treated in a patronising manner by the younger men. At the BBC, in the 1940s, "everybody would pull his leg," and Spender described him as having real entertainment value "like, as I say, watching a Charlie Chaplin movie." A friend of Eileen's reminisced about her tolerance and humour, often at Orwell's expense. Psychiatrist Michael Fitzgerald has speculated that Orwell's social and physical awkwardness, limited interests and monotone voice were the result of Asperger syndrome.
Obviously because he actually went there to live with them and see how their lives were.
Unlike tweed-wearing "socialist" malcontents in the middle class who are just full of resentment at not being the ruling class.
I came up with a little philosophical thought experiment. I hope you enjoy it.
I personally came to a wonderful conclusion after asking myself these questions.
1. Imagine the most neutral event/thing/possibility you can.
2. Save it to memory.
3. Now reflect on it. Would you describe this neutral imagination rather as positive or negative (if you had to choose)?
Now, ask yourself the question;
If truth is without any judgment and thus completely neutral, why do I/we aspire to find it?
I'm confused. I imagined myself starting at an apple and an orange on a table. I still see it as mainly neutral.
>>9712298
But you have to choose. rather positive or negative?
truth yields power, power is positive
Should I delete all the ["]'s and just go with [']s to sound more patrician?
the fact that you didn't write quotation marks and apostrophe's already makes you patrician enough
>not using «»
>in a language that uses apostrophes at that
>not using – at the very least
>>9712284
imagine the life experience that girl has. how can you even move through the world without the perpetual subtext basically being that guys all want to bury their faces in your tits?
Thoughts on this lt?
>>9712266
purge
>>9712266
>doesn't wish for a million more wishes