Archived threads in /lit/ - Literature - 2194. page

I went about my life and the world and repeatedly post these rants as copy pastas on multiple boards.

I'm alone for this new year like all previous ones.

I plan to post a topic on pol telling them "good goy, stay a loser who has no chance of propagating the white race"

last new years eve (or possibly the one before, i forget) there was a thread about going on omegle and putting /lit/ as your interest

and i ended up passing the new year chatting to a random guy from here who liked djuna barnes
it was a nice moment of connection

Last year I went to an ok gathering
The last year ive been so distant and unreachable that I think everyone has forgotten I exist

>>8909437
we've always been telling the same stories. our emotional compass hasn't expanded all our favorite modern stories are all just repetitions of the same fundamental human experience.

that said. civilization will fall (in whatever sense), "literaryness" will rise

>>8909437
Don't worry mate when my novel is out in a couple of years the literary world will be envigorated

>>8909461
Holy shit

Yours too?

>>8909376
That's a pretty decent analysis man

I think it's pretty unlikely Kinbote is who he says it is, but there are people who disagree with me

It's quite obvious that Kinbote is not Charles the Beloved. The Russian professor mentioned throughout the novel is actually professor Pnin from another of Nabokov's novels. As to who Kinbote really is, there are many possible interpretations. He could be another professor at the university, a C. Botkin, who is offhandedly mentioned once in the story and is referenced in the index. He could also be a fabrication made by John Shade, who manufactured Kinbote as a literary device to comment on the nature of literary criticism. Gradus was probably in actuality the escaped inmate Jack Grey, as Kinbote alluded to near the end of the novel, and was trying to murder Goldsworth (Kinbote's landlord) who bore a striking resemblance to Shade, as was mentioned once or twice in the novel.

As far as the 'point' of the novel. I don't think it's supposed to be particularly complicated, and Nabokov himself despised the idea of a didactic message in art so he would have deplored the search itself. What he did was write a book about one author who allegedly wrote a poem, and another man of indeterminate identity who made a commentary on it. All conclusions beyond that are left up to the individual reader, and of course reflections on general literary criticism are bound to be drawn

>>8909376
Kinbote = V. Botkin, mentioned in the index as a Russian emigrant professor

Zembla doesn't exist. zembla = semblance = from the latin similare, simulare, to simulate, a simulation.

Botkin wrote Kinbote's commentary, and perhaps even the poem (the fact that John "Shade" is married to a "Sybil" (=sibyl) seems suspicious). After finishing the novel, he commits suicide --- heavily implied when he says in the end that he hopes God will rid him of the impulse to "follow the fate of the 2 other main characters in this story".

The fact that one person wrote both the poem and the commentary, a person who is neither John Shade nor Kinbote, is supported by the index, where the person who wrote the index refers to "the three main characters being represented by the letters G, K, and S".

The trite realization that Kinbote = exiled king of Zembla is a sort of parody to trick the reader, make them thing they've gotten something deep. The layer behind that is that Botkin created the story and Kinbote is his alter ego; Zembla is a parody of Russia

its a pretty terrible idea but more people than will ever admit do it anyways desu

>I wonder why that is
It's an English-speaking imageboard.

>Any love for it here?
Here, but I'm halfway through the Aeneid now, and I intend to read the Metamorphoses before I return to this classic properly.

>Would it be too blasphemous to read just the inferno part and not the purgatory and heaven?
The good news is that you have to start from Inferno regardless of whether you plan to continue.

>>8909375
>Here, but I'm halfway through the Aeneid now, and I intend to read the Metamorphoses before I return to this classic properly.

Yes, see that Virgil and The Aeneid are pretty important here, which made me doubt to continue the reading. Would you recommend I do the same? Or maybe a first 'innocent' read and then a second one in a few years with more informed background, as you are doing

infinite jest

my diary desu

>>8909354
So Girl Interrupted isn't dark and edgy enough for you. You want more penis.

>>8909304
shelf full of memes

>>8909315
i didn't even look at his shelf but FUCK that makes me hate him even more

Fuck Drumpf and Fuck white people

good, you seem like an insufferable faggot

>>8909186
>let's list all the books we've read in 2016
>slam poetry
>le spooks
>my books are better than your books
>pleb/patrician dichotomy
>middle-class depression
>"tfw you have your fourth existential crisis in a month"

get tae fuck. /lit/ is insufferable

>>8909180
most of /lit/ is actually more sincere and less pseudo-intellectual than the mass of elitist dilettantes i've met irl desu. like 90% of people invested in critical "academic" study of literature are wholly full of shit. At least here I don't have to acknowledge them.

>>8909144
The kind of publisher printing as cheap as possible.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=the+brothers+karamazov+platinum+edition&espv=2&biw=1366&bih=643&site=webhp&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjdl_uzoZ_RAhUqAcAKHTx9BQUQ_AUIBygC#tbm=isch&q=illustrated+platinum+edition

File: 5ba2949fe233ed96fe2634631fd3b0d2.jpg (30KB, 320x500px) Image search: [Google]

30KB, 320x500px

>>8909144

Wordsworth has worse covers

yep, we're a bunch of idiots

>>8909113
Myshkin would never spend 5 hours shitposting and calling other people's philosopies faggotry on a mongolian cartoon website.

From the short time Ive spent on this board, I honestly believe this board would make Dostoyevsky throw up. This board is filled to the brim with materialists and egoists, shit that Dostoyevsky spent his entire career denouncing

It sucks.

>>8908872
Goofs gaffs and gambols. A fellow of infinite jest.

"written in 1973, it predicted that bayer would buy monsanto. 'nuff said. read it."

Categories, On Interpretation, Physics, Metaphysics

>>8908738
From what I hear, NE is supposed to be among the most works, if not THE most readable work. Maybe try Poetics (very short), but frankly if that doesn't do the trick you might be out of luck.

The best starting point for Aristotle is Plato desu

>>8908636
smart, but the man had no original thoughts. he admitted as much himself.

lol what are you talking about?

nothing but misconceptions. choose better your 2ndary literature next time.

>>8909881
literally analytical kierkegaard

File: 220px-Revolutionary_Joyce_Better_Contrast.jpg (15KB, 220x295px) Image search: [Google]

15KB, 220x295px

ye

>>8909106
Why does Jimmy look so good in profile but so hilariously dumb head on?

>>8909155
it's the same with most people desu

I don't subscribe to the genre fiction/"real" literature dichotomy because I'm not a fucking idiot.

I find science fiction more boring than classics.
>woo spaceships
>woo lazers
What am I eight?

all fiction readers are manchildren anyway
might as well be watching a soap opera

Start with Theory and Phenomenology of the Absolute Individual. He wrote when he was still young and determined to explain his world-view in a rational and structured way, using the shared philosophical jargon of the Europe of the day.

After that you can either focus on his political writings (Revolt is more epic, Ride the Tiger is basically a manual for the hopeless traditionalists whose fate/choice is to live an involved life in the Kali Yuga, while trying to preserve their dignity), or go after spiritual adventures by reading his esoteric books (the Buddhism, Alchemy and Tantra ones are all top tier; the Tao Teh Ching "translation" is also pretty good, as long as you keep in mind it's actually an interpretation).

Or you could read/skim through The Path of Cinnabar (his intellectual autobiography, where he delineates the story behind all his works) and use it as a catalog for your choice.

>>8908434
hes overrated

read virilio instead

>>8908723
Theory and Phenomenology of the Absolute Individual seems relatively obscure - I can't find it on Amazon, or can't find a pdf version either. Thanks for the suggestions though