Archived threads in /lit/ - Literature - 2569. page

>>8700933
Because he's fat, ugly, and mediocre.

Because he smell

>>8700933
Gass isn't the savior but the monkish practitioner of a nearly dead form. DeLillo through his influence and Vollmann through his spirit have kept American literature from life support. David Wallace was the chosen one but... McCarthy and Pynchon's work float somewhere in some transcendent orbit far from any realm that could be saved. Tried hard/10

Religious ones

>>8700818
my diary desu

>>8700962
Edgy.

>why do so many people need help?! Life is not that complicated. You get up, you go to work, eat three meals, you take one good shit and you go back to bed. What’s the fucking mystery?!

>And the part I really don’t understand, if you’re looking for self help, why would you read a book, written by somebody else?! That’s not self help, that’s help!

>There’s no such a thing as self help…if you did it yourself, you didn’t need help. You did it yourself!

>Based Carlin

>>8700777
Not if they help you or make you happy (whatever that means). Im a very cynical person but reading pop psych makes me feel better sometimes. I just dont go in to them with the attitude that it'll change my life or make me smarter. If it's a good one it helps you do the self illumination rather than some didactic shit or someone hoping that itll give them answers.

>>8700777
They're bullshit because of the very nature of the idea of what they sell.
Its the propositions that the problems in our lives are dependent on mistaken life strategies despite the fact we all have spent a vast amount of time considering these matters and have recieved a vast amount of information relating to them.
All this has come together to establish what we believe to be the optimum life strategy available to us based on our personal interests and habbits.

Thus the problem practically all people have is not that we lack the right strategy its that we all subconscious drives to both self defeat and not fail to live up to what we know already to be the "optimum" thing to do.
Understanding these drives and overcoming them are more complicated and too personal to be derived from a book which promises to sell one size fits all strategies to a mass market

>Ray Kurzweil
>getting memed this hard

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>>8700778
That's exactly what I'm getting at anon

>>8700785
Brofist.

Ray "Immortality in 20 years, Strong AI in 30 years" Kurzweil is one of the few pop-sci authors that actually constricts my jimmies.

>>8700758
STEM is the move, bud

>>8700758
How many rejection letters is that, anon?

I keep reading about a 1% acceptance rate for unsolicited works, so that can give you some sense of how many more you got.

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>>8700844
>tfw gf submits first ever play to a few publications.
>two months later, receives an offer.
>about to accept when she receives an even better offer.

If you can squeeze America in before Tuesday, i'd recommend that

>>8700757
I'd recommend reading some of his short stories in order to better acquaint yourself with the 'logic' of his imagination, which would increase your enjoyment of The Trial. Stuff like The Judgment, The Hunger Artist, The Penal Colony, etc.

However, there's no reason you couldn't read The Trial first.

>>8700766
Why before tuesday? Is it because of the elections?
>>8700780
Thanks for the recs. I wanted to know which of his short stories were the best. I'll definitely check'em out.

Start with the Greeks

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You should familiarize yourself with Max Stirner, first and foremost.
As for the space ocean thing? Try searching the catalog for /sffg/ - science fiction & fantasy general.

>>8700686
when you say start with the greeks do you mean the greek as a whole or is there a book/show called "The Greeks"?

kek seriously

>tfw TAR was five years ago

Anyone ever picture /lit/ as a sort of old school literary fraternity with some guys who take the literary aspect very seriously and some guys just in it for the shitposting and socializing? This guy is one of our good guys. Bless you

>>8700453
I honestly think he'd have been pretty pissed.

>>8700453
Is there a connection between the two?

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>>8700453
Something like this I expect

>>8700307
>he thinks exercises actually help
Yeah, nah. Just don't bother m8.

I don't know, try writing a classic book in a different tense/perspective or something

>>8700314
That's actually a pretty good God damn idea.

>>8700313
Sure, man. Practice doesn't help. Good attitude.

Autist who writes some great dialogue here.
Depends how bad your autism is and how it affects you. I'm always dreaming of big fight scenes and the like, so what I do is recall the emotions I have that were similar to what that character is doing.

What do they want?
Why are they talking to the other character?
How does their personality play into it?
How do they usually handle conversations?(ie a retard would just spaz out and talk in garbles)
What's the scene? Where do you want the conversation to go?

Then you go back and edit to make it more natural. Try saying it out loud, imagine the character saying it. If it sounds weird, if you haven't seen someone do something like that, find someone who does speak and listen to them and notice what they are doing and how they are speaking.

Usually, stories have a sort of built in feature where they make everyone a bit more verbose. They'll say things that illustrate the plot and scene, are usually unnecessary, and actually don't make sense for them to say. Drifter's episode 3 is a good example of that. That kind of dialogue means that the story has 'taken over' the characters and is using them to push it forward.
The real challenge is then learning how to balance your story driven dialogue and your character dialogue.

>>8700258
You don't have to write dialogue at all

>>8700258
make all your characters into robots trying to find their humanity.

>>8699898
bump!

The Bible, being quite honest.

>>8699860
Just grab him by the kitty senpai

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>>8699860
He's one of those writers you can just dive into man. It doesn't really matter.

I was thinking of starting a reading group for War and Peace over Christmas, cuz I want to reread it, so if you want to wait till that gets going (if it does, people might not be up for it) you'd have some people to ask any questions you might have.

But really, Tolstoy's so great because he is a fantastic top-level novelist, who doesn't requite you to have read the complete works of Plato and Aristotle to understand.

Read my diary for an introduction to his works and annotations in case you need some references desu

Philosophy majors only goal is to perpetuate more philosophy majors.

>>8699746
Got an MBA.

If you have a scholarship, then milk it up. Otherwise, there's no reason to go into debt for what is, essentially, the ponzi scheme called "higher education." Degrees are all about social status in a superficial Debordian image-based spectacle. Read C. Wright Mills' Power Elite to start.
Also, as far as things being "worthwhile" as you state; nothing really is worthwhile. It's all rather absurd and meaningless. Start with Lao Tsu and move into some Sartre and Dadaist absurdists from there for fun.

Why does the notion of trying to transcend the cruelty of the base state of nature bother you so much Op?

this >>8699836

If you constantly strive to gain power and invest nothing in luxuries your net gains are zero, you are basically being cucked by nature.

>>8699712
What deviantart are you trying to link here