What is Nietzsche's Zarathustra supposed to look like? I keep imagining him looking like N himself, big mustachio and all, but I know that's wrong. And all google gives me is the Persian prophet which I'm pretty sure isn't right either.
This picture is frequently associated with Zarathustra, but it's not really depicting anybody particular (other than how the average pseud feels after reading Nietzsche amieite?)
He's whatever you want him to be man.
me in a parka high as FUCK
>>8907106
Walter white
does /lit/ read webfiction?
>pic related, Worm
webfiction is mostly crap.
https://qntm.org/structure is one of the only legitimately interesting online works I've come across.
>>8907085
Sturgeon's law, webfiction isn't the exception but isn't special.
qntm's Structure is great, I think Ra (by the same author) is just as good. Also check out his stuff on SCP foundation (I know, I know, but it really is a fun read)
Worm is great, unreservedly recommend.
His next work, Pact, got more mixed reviews but I still liked.
There is consensus that his current ongoing novel, Twig, is his best yet.
Just finished binging A Practical Guide to Evil, would put in on par with Worm wrt characterization, worldbuilding and prose.
Does Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality count? I've wanted to read it for a while but never got around to it.
There's too much muck to wade through when it comes to fanfic/web fiction, so I mostly avoid it. There's tons of asian web fictions too, and there's some reddit subs devoted to translating it. Have never read a single chapter of any of it though.
I want to read The Journey to the West, is it even worth it to read the full version? Should I just read a shortened version? Which translation is the best?
>>8907064
You should read the extended remake and go for the Nabokov translation you're welcome kiddo
I had the same question, and I'm normally terrified of abridgments, so I'd assume I want the full version. For example I read Burton's 1001 Nights in full and didn't want to cop out, even if I had to tolerate redundancies and repetitions.
From what I understand though, based on what I remember, the "full" Journey to the West is just the same problem as the 1001 Nights but in overdrive. It's a shitload of redundant or muddled stories, rehashes of rehashes of the same story, etc. I remember feeling fairly safe in just reading the abridgment.
Definitely do your own research and don't trust my half-remembered thing, but this might help to guide you.
I also remember going for Anthony C. Yu because it seemed like the "current major translation," but I think the competition was prtty sparse, like just old Victorian ones otherwise?
If you are reading a translation your purity score is already messed up, so don't bother.
Have you ever tried to read the same book in two different but pretty close and modern languages, like say French and English? If you had you'd knew that even in that case there is absolutely no chance you are getting close to the original book, so what do you think you are doing by reading every redundancy and every inconsequential subplot in a 16th century chinese book?
Don't waste your life
American Psycho is YA fiction, legit. I read it when I was 18 and it's on the same par as Fight Club.
>>8907055
I don't know what "is Young Adult fiction, legit" means, but I'm reading Rules of Attraction right now and its not very good. Ellis was so self-indulgently insistent on writing overwrought half-page sentences that he made all his characters sound and feel the same.
>>8907109
While I get that all the characters are essentially the same in so far as they're aimless souls whose searches for affection have been misled by college hedonism, their identical sounding internal monologues feel less like a stylistic choice than a flat out lack of talent on the part of Ellis.
BEE is overrated.
That been said, American Psycho is a hell of a good book, far above his other ones imo. He went real deep on this one.
I'm reading American Psycho. Bateman is a fucking autist
>>8906965
Why do you think he is so revered on this website?
American Psycho is YA fiction, legit. I read it when I was 18 and it's on the same par as Fight Club.
>autist
>not a sociopath
wew lad
>that one book you read again every year
What is it, /lit/?
my diary desu
>>8906945
The Great Gatsby and The Sun also rises.
Just for fun. They're fun reads. Easy to digest, easy to read, great stories (imo), overall solid books.
>>8906945
The Making of Americans by Gertrude Stein
When you follow this formatting post in reddit on this thread, the book cover shows at the top of the page. Let's all post our favorite books!
https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/5j5gwh/what_books_are_you_reading_this_week_december_19/
Kill yourself for browsing Reddit
>>8906897
Make me you fucking pussy
>>8906908
If I were alone with you right now in your faggot hipster apartment full of effeminate knick-knacks and ironic movie posters and other stupid Reddit bullshit, and I saw you browsing Reddit, I would garotte you hold the wire tight for a minute and a half after you stopped kicking. I'd go on your fucking Macbook and see that you're logged into Facebook and your friends think Rogue One was a good movie, that you follow hip LGBT activist comedians on Twitter, and that you watch Neil de Grasse Tyson documentaries on Netflix. I'd go back to your body and mutilate your face with my fingernails so your mother can't look at you.
Is materialism the cause of western societies problems? Do we need to abandon it and accept spirituality once again?
>>8906837
No. That's dumb and impossible.
The hierarchies that our spiritualist heritage has bequeaths us with is what's to blame
>>8906837
>Is materialism the cause of western societies problems?
Only in a round about way.
You probably are not high enough level yet to understand this but all societies face a certain set of problems depending on their state of development and technology. Contemporary western society's particular problems are caused by its technology. If you change the technology you get a different set of problems. There is no final solution like ideologues such as Dostoevsky think.
>>8906860
But what technology? Surely the penicillin or laser cutters didn't get us into where we are now.
I think the cause is the birth control pill. There I said it.
Wtf I'm a transcendentalist now
Seriously though this book may have changed my life. His criticism of coffee aside, I think Thoreau is bang on
>"Not till we are completely lost, or turned around do we appreciate the vastness and strangeness of Nature. Every man has to learn the points of compass again as often as he awakes, whether from sleep or any abstraction. Not till we are lost, in other words, not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations."
>>8906786
Proust constantly read and reread Thoreau's works and journals.
>>8906824
I can see why
New year's edition
>>8906751
i want to die
I want >>8906777 to die
The chilly weather is getting to the gnats around the house. While in the bathroom just now, I attempted my usual cat-like reflex to jab at one resting on the counter. He was agile enough to avoid my halfhearted insecticide and sluggishly landed on my hand for a second before sputtering off. He was going so slowly I was able to grab him mid-flight in my closed palm. I took him over to the corner where Spidermang set up shop, and flung the gnat into his web. His body language was hilarious. Stunned but elated, like "Fuck yeah! Dinner!" It amused me.
>>8906777
Aw, lucky sevens!
Why is this considered one of the big "meme books" by /lit/?
It isn't, hence the lack of replies.
>>8907347
Perhaps not replying is part of the meme.
>>8907372
Goddamnit
>novel is dead and culturally irrelevant
>movies are dead and culturally irrelevant
>fiction writers and movie stars are irrelevant
Are you going to acknowledge the world we live in or are you going to ignore it?
Ignore it.
world has movied into unsustainable hypercapitalist bullshit
we just happened to be born at a shit time for the arts
it can't last
>>8906717
I'll just stay in my bubble of ignorance
Are any of these actually good?
>>8906699
I didn't even know /lit/ had a drugs book chart.
>>8906699
DUDE WEED LMAO
>>8906710
See, you're not even trying to hide your autism at this point.
If you haven't experienced at least 100 books, films or albums, get the fuck off this board
How did you come to that number, 100, so specifically?
film and music are for brainlets
>100 films
I-is that even possible?
I'm about 200 pages in. There's been some good parts and some really funny parts but is it always this...tedious? Like is it written this way the whole way through? Telling the story through constant broken half formed dialogue was okay at first but it's just getting old at this point. Am I missing something?
Yes, a brain.
The point.
>>8906651
Oh okay, thanks. You're probably right