Are there any families in literature more dysfunctional than the Compsons?
>>8975450
the Incandenza
>>8975452
OP said literature. DFW wrote mere books.
>The Sutpens
>The Bundrens
>tfw when I don't have money to buy books anymore so I have to borrow from the library.
I hate the library. Only poor people go there.
guess a library suits you fine then
>>8975396
my library sucks. it's full of worthless menopauserotica. what's worse than poverty is destitution of the mind.
Women are a worthless gender.
hey /lit/ i am searching for the title of a book.
it was posted in a thread about books dealing with the trouble of writing. i think its from the early 20th century. a man leaves a wife to live in stupefying poverity in paris to be an artist.
he is being helped by another guy and the arist eventually fucks that guys wife. please halp
plox
posting for interest
>>8975334
what kind of artist?
>release date 20 January 2017
What did Penguin mean by this?
>Another white man getting published
Colour me surprised.
They actually re-released this book around 2002 and were pushing it pretty hard at B&N and Borders, since everyone thought the parallels to post-9/11 Bush were obvious.
I read it back then, and Lewis is one of my favorite writers, but the book is a hypothetical from the 30's and doesn't quite capture anything that could or would happen, now.
I'm not saying the US would never be authoritarian, but the method by which it slowly happens isn't described in Lewis's book.
When does the sixth Knausgaard book come out
>ITT: Books that started out great and turned to shit.
Expect spoilers
>>8975184
So, are you just starting threads to be an asshole?
>>8975206
what? this is the first /lit/ thread I've started in over a year.
it seems like it would be a fun discussion. How am i being an asshole?
my diary desu
How is it possible for a book to be this based
How is it possible for a post to be this bait
How did that 'se' get in there?
>>8975125
apparently he had a hell of a time getting the damn thing published, so yeah, not easy.
I don't want to write about fat people. Not as side characters, not as main characters, not even as villains or background people. How are you supposed to write people you don't like and aren't even interested in?
When somebody writes a fat character, does it pull you into the story better, or no?
Generally I think that putting fat anything into your works is just not a good idea. I don't even think the old greats even bothered with them either.
Is your mother obese? don't fight it, anon
>>8975077
write about feet people
just don't describe your characters in that much detail and the reader will imagine their preferred body type
social justice backlash averted
Is Thom Yorke a terrible lyricist?
I wouldn't say terrible, he's not.
He makes up for it with how he emotes though.
>>8975065
I feel like every lyric is okay but could have been better if he bothered revising.
>>8975065
yes. he's also a terrible physicist.
"It wasn't you I bowed down to. I bowed down to all of suffering humanity."
What did he mean by this?
>>8975064
he meant that human suffering deserves more respect than the human, that's why he bows down to human suffering and not to the human
Sonya suffers for everyone in a selfless, obedient Christian way. The exact opposite of Raskolonikov. He's in love with her
I feel you Rodya ;_;
does anyone else better embody the post-modern condition?
me
>>8975035
Delillo, even though Gass is better
Bloated is a terrible condition.
/ssrg/ Short Story Reading Group: The Yellow Wall Paper
Welcome to the Short Story Reading Group! All are invited to join in at any time, or to come and go as you please. Thank you all for participating.
>The Yellow Wall Paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
>6,153 words
>Reading time: 31 minutes
>Poll
http://www.strawpoll.me/12111292
Discussions start in this thread and will finish on Tuesday. The next reading is The Fortune-Teller by Machado de Assis (3,893 words). Discussion for it will run Wednesday through Thursday.
>ebook
https://mega.nz/#F!tVUyAAya!MhE3co1AQ3tXjLS-iX4CTw
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Yellow_Wall_Paper
Pro tip: On the left side of Wikisource you can click "Download as EPUB" to download a well formatted epub.
>audiobook
https://archive.org/details/GilmanCPYellowWallpaper
https://archive.org/details/pacifica_radio_archives-BC1139
>ebook for next reading
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Fortune-Teller
>Many stories will be pulled from The World's Greatest Short Stories (Dover Thrift Editions) which is $4
http://www.bookdepository.com/The-Worlds-Greatest-Short-Stories-James-Daley/9780486447162
Old threads:
>>8956892 The Man Who Would Be King #2 - Kipling
>>8951620 The Man Who Would Be King #1 - Kipling
>>8919723 The Death of Ivan Ilyich - Tolstoy
>>8898002 Bartleby, the Scrivener - Melville
>>8889062 The Necklace - Maupassant
>>8975646
It's following the book. You can check the table of contents on the bookdepository link, or download the epub in the mega folder.
Why is this group not doing better? Poorly choice of stories? I really liked Bartleby, Death of Ivan Ilyich, and The Man Who Would Be King. A lot of people seemed to like Bartleby at least.
Was it because Death of Ivan Ilyich was too long? Did that kill the group?
Is it because people don't feel committed to the group, whereas with the W&P/COMC everyone feels like they are part of the group?
Are short stories just not /lit/ reading group material?
Is there anything I can do to improve the group?
I wasn't very sure where this story was going at first. I was convinced that it was going to turn out as some sort of Lovecraftian horror where the protagonist gets sucked into the wallpaper with all the other "women" who were trapped inside. But it was clear what the story was about by the end.
I feel that Gilman was going for a satire of subservient women, while attacking the methods physicians used to cure depression (?). This was mainly achieved through excessive use of exclamation marks, very short paragraphs and the character's submissive nature to her husband despite being tormented by her solitude.
Confined in the nursery and restricted from writing or any activity, the depressed protagonist turns to her imagination to entertain herself. Eventually this causes her mental health to deteriorate even further and causes her spiral into madness.
From Wikipedia:
>Gilman explained that the idea for the story originated in her own experience as a patient: "the real purpose of the story was to reach Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, and convince him of the error of his ways".[7] She had suffered years of depression and consulted a well-known specialist physician who prescribed a "rest cure" which required her to "live as domestic a life as possible". She was forbidden to touch pen, pencil, or brush, and was allowed only two hours of mental stimulation a day.
I prefer to view it as not so much an attack on 'the patriarchy' as an attack on shitty physicians like the protagonist's husband. Anyone can attest that a lack of mental stimulation causes the mind to wander in its boredom.
>>8975998
Bad timezone, I think.
I suggest skipping the next story. I read ahead and it might be one of the worst short stories I've ever read. About half of it is exposition, the characters are written ridiculously and the ending is complete nonsense.
If you were Humbert Humbert, how would you justify your attraction to pubescent girls to the ladies and gentlemen of the jury?
>>8975019
proof i have attraction
>>8975019
he justified it in the story
he loved a girl who died before reaching her teens and he could never forget her so he projected what he desired but could never have onto Lo
Show them that pic
Hi /lit/, never read tolstoy and was wondering what english translator you guys recommend.
>>8975018
P&V
Maude, especially in revised form.
They knew Tolstoy, and Tolstoy said they were the best translators an author could ask for.
Maudes or Garnett.
What drugs aid your reading and writing, /lit/? I use caffeine and amphetamines to help me read and write huge amounts each day.
>>8974941
unhealthy doses of caffeine
>>8974941
p. much caffeine.
also occasionally gecko bilboa
how do you read with caffeine? I get too wired to focus
What is your definitive guide on style?
Enrique Iglesias.
*smokes pipe
>>8974934
Not that.
http://www.chronicle.com/article/50-Years-of-Stupid-Grammar/25497