ITT: books you wish you had written

Moby Dick or Blood Meridian

my diary desu

>>7687854
you didn't write your own diary?

>>7687868
Wasn't an autodiary, mate.

>>7687846
I have a book I've currently written only a bit over a tenth of that I wish I'd already finished because I think it's the only thing I've written to date that's actually publishable.

mein kampf

Motherfucking Ficciones.

>>7687900
>wanting to write like knausgaard

The Castle

Every time I try to start, I get sidetracked by worldbuilding, then dig further and further into details until I have an epiphany about the real world that doesn't let me sleep for a few days.

Book of Job.

>>7687952
You're thinking of Min Kamp

>>7687849
this desu senpai

>>7688063
tip dat hat, son

>>7688084
i know this is a meme but i am flustered by how little i know beyond that about it

Well, id like to write a book conserning the state of democracy , and the influencing-possibilities of average citicen in modern society.

>>7687846
Don Quixote

The Trial

The Age of Rage

Invisible Cities

>>7688562
no that hitler

The Sound and the Fury

>>7687846
The Ocean Is a Sea

Tyndale Bible
Paradise Lost
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
The Departing Soul's Address to the Body

>>7689415
Oh fuck, good choice. Calvino's the shit

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Fifty Shades of Grey
Ulysses

I wish I wrote In Search of Lost Time
I could just imagine setting down the 4000 page collection on some editors desk

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>>7687846

>>7687895
Guess what anon.
its not publishable

A Confederacy of Dunces or Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me.

Gravity's Rainbow, Slaughterhouse-Five, and most especially, Catch-22

The obvious answer: Infinite Jest. Open it to any page, read it, and I'm like, Shit. He did it. He captured America between two covers. He captured what it means to be a fucking human being. Only Moby-Dick and Mason & Dixon come close.

>>7691871

That book is great, but I think the pressure its publication created is partially what lead to his suicide.

I don't think it is a coincidence the last thing he did before committing suicide is organise his unfinished work on the Pale King.

Harry Potter

>>7690783

>not dying first and having your 4000 page collection discovered by your estate and published by your family to global acclaim and living forever through your legacy.

>>7691909

You're right and you're wrong. The Pale King killed him. Metaphorically, of course.

>>7691957
Thats what i did

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>>7687846
The PoS fo' sure

My Twisted World

The Divine Comedy, Paradise Lost or the Nicomachean Ethics

>>7691858
I was going to say GR or Catch-22 too. I wish I was that clever.

The book of disquiet

>>7692859
>Hegel

Don't.

Harry Potter so I could be a billionaire, you fucking idiots.

Everything Shakespeare did

>>7692996
>being a writer
>caring for money

You are aware that most of the greatest writers/ thinkers/ inventors/ and pretty much everyone else great... died in poverty

>>7693020
That dosent need to be the case today unless you're some overly romantic teenager. Get a job and write on the side. Chekov did it.

>>7693020

>Caring about being remembered forever

Motherfucker I will be dead, however with a billion UKbux I can do whatever the fuck I want, including writing some actual good novels if I had talent (I don't).

I'd much rather be rich as fuck and spend my time exploring the world.

>>7693025
>That dosent need to be the case today unless you're some overly romantic teenager.
Nah, you could have said that about any time in history, you pleb.
Get a job and write on the side.
Then you're not fully devoted to it, are you? It becomes your ''on the side''... Are you usually a bit slow or?

>>7693027
I never implied I wanted to be remembered forever. Just that all of the ''great'' men in the world, mostly, lived in poverty at the time of their death. You were the one who put the two and two together, mate. Some of them were indeed very rich... most weren't though. And I think we can both agree that the majority of inspiration for any great work comes from some form of great suffering. Poverty, has been that suffering time and time again for alot of writers, throughout many different periods of time.
>I can do whatever the fuck I want, including writing some actual good novels if I had talent (I don't).
Do you imagine inspiration comes from having money? Because that's quite obviously the main thing. Money won't buy you ''obsession''

>I'd much rather be rich as fuck and spend my time exploring the world.
Then go be a banker. You're wasting your time writing if that's what you want.

>>7693077

I know these things, what I'm telling you is that I have no desire to be great. I am not a writer, I like reading and comfort, based on these I would like to have written what would afford me the maximum comfort, which is Harry Potter.

I literally never once mentioned inspiration or any of that, it's tangential to my point. Besides, the mention of writing something good was just an example of the kind of thing you can do with limitless time and resources.

To your last point: I literally never once mentioned that I want to be a writer.

>>7693077
>Then you're not fully devoted to it, are you? It becomes your ''on the side''... Are you usually a bit slow or?
Romantic teenager detected. Many people have perfected skills while doing other things on the side, writing is no different. There are legitimately good artists and writers with degrees in Chemistry, Engineering, etc.

And again, fucking Chekov.

>>7693135
>Romantic teenager detected.
Not at all. I'm telling you as someone who just knows history. Sure, it's possible to do it but it's quite clearly much better for your work if it recieves your full concentration throughout life.

>Many people have perfected skills while doing other things on the side, writing is no different.
Yeah... but I'm talking genius level shit here. Most of the ''great'' people to have ever walked this earth focused mainly on their work. They didn't work at the post office on the si... Oh wait, but I know someone who did and I can see how that worked out for him...
>There are legitimately good artists and writers with degrees in Chemistry, Engineering, etc.
What is your point?
This does not mean they couldn't have created something much greater had they not spend so much time doing other shit.

And again, fucking Chekov namedropping doesn't mean anything. I ignored it last time for a reason...

>>7693135

The guy expects to be able to write without having a job while still not being rich. So he expects to be homeless or pull a Joyce and borrow off everyone around you for your entire life.

Most people aren't talented enough to justify pulling a Joyce

>>7693150
If you know your history then you know its possible, I say Chekov because he's an extremely fine example of someone who could be an accomplished writer, doctor and just about everything else.

You're claiming to know history, but also ignoring it?

I should also add that the best writers had a wealth of knowledge about life itself, that implies going out and doing things, observing. They didnt sit around absorbing other peoples books. If all you know about the world is other peoples work then you wont be a very good writer, a technical trickster at best.

>>7693154
What the fuck are you talking about, mate?

As I've said... Most of the greatest writers, thinkers, inventors and ''great'' people lived in poverty when writing their great works.

As an example:
Milton was fucking broke and blind when he wrote Paradise Lost.
Writing isn't sitting in starbucks drinking your latte while hitting letters on your ''look at me'' typewriter while sitting effeminately.

I never said not have a job at all, just not one that requires much effort. If that. It's perfectly possible to live without a job.

t b h if you're about your shit you'll just write anywhere & make the time, its no big deal

>>7693175
>I should also add that the best writers had a wealth of knowledge about life itself
Not at all and you wouldn't know this even if they did.
>that implies going out and doing things, observing.
Not always. Also, I never said you shouldn't do this anyway so I'm failing to see the point you're making.
Working a job isn't the only way to ''go out and do things'' you know...
>They didnt sit around absorbing other peoples books
Uh... Yes they did? Yes they fucking did.
>If all you know about the world is other peoples work then you wont be a very good writer,
Says who? I'm not denying this either, I'm just saying... According to who? You?
>a technical trickster at best.

>They didnt sit around absorbing other peoples books
Kek'd
Say that to pretty much every philosopher ever for atleast a large portion of their life

>>7693201
The point is you're painting this picture of the writer as someone whose huddled in his apartment and knows nothing else but jotting in his notebook and periodically munching on classics. Its a romantic notion with no real basis in fact.

The best writers always had a wealth of life experience and could capture emotions and scenarios that every man could relate to. There's even a running trend of many acclaimed authors today being war veterans. Life experience and what you have to share counts for alot when it comes to writing, since you're literally sharing yourself.

If you have a job, family, etc, and try to find time in the peripheries of your life to work, it is unlikely you will produce anything of worth

If you give up everything else and live as a bum in order to devote everything to literature, it is unlikely you will produce anything of worth

it is unlikely you will produce anything of worth

Genius is genius, either you have it or you don't. Genius can be stifled by the demands of writing for a living, or it can be stifled by the demands of doing something else for a living. Having a social life might leave you with no time to write. Not having a social life might leave you with nothing to say, rehashing some Fernando Pessoa shit and growing steadily more depressed because you're not him and nobody will ever care about your whining.

There is no rulebook. Do what you have to do, make your choice, live your life. and if you're talented and dedicated then maybe you'll produce something worth reading.


Anyway, in answer to the question: Mason & Dixon.

>>7693235

Bingo. Not having anything to actually say is something that will happen to idiots who have nothing else but literature in their life

anything by gaskun to be honest family.

>>7693282
not sure if you're strictly referring to fiction and poetry or if you mean literature as in books. but the Nietzsche guy seemed very bookish to me, and he was interesting. but then again he probably was a normie

great expectations
lost illusions by balzac
on the road (scroll version)
candide