What do y'all think of this poem I wrote???
My brain is like the static on a TV.
I want to change the channel so that I can see
Something else besides static on the TV.
My parents told me
That one day I would be
Old enough to see
Something else besides static on the TV
They said it's something only grow ups can see.
I don't think I'm grown up
Because the ants still crawl on my TV set
And that fuzzy fog hasn't let up yet.
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Not a lot.
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It's bad
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>>8354249
I thought the first stanza to be promising. But the parents and growing up stuff sounds lame to be honest...
>The office Halloween party was at the Royalton last week and I went as a mass murderer, complete with a sign painted on my back that read MASS MURDERER (which was decidedly lighter than the sandwich board I had constructed earlier that day that read DRILLER KILLER), and beneath those two words I had written in blood Yep, that’s me and the suit was also covered with blood, some of it fake, most of it real. In one fist I clenched a hank of Victoria Bell’s hair, and pinned next to my boutonniere (a small white rose) was a finger bone I’d boiled the flesh off of. As elaborate as my costume was, Craig McDermott still managed to win first place in the competition. He came as Ivan Boesky, which I thought was unfair since a lot of people thought I’d gone as Michael Milken last year.
Why didn't he win?
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dude yuppies lmao
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Wtf I hate Manhattan now
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>though it does sporadically penetrate how unacceptable some of what I’m doing actually is, I just remind myself that this thing, this girl, this meat, is nothing, is shit
what did he MEEEEAAAAN by this?
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I love old school sci-fi, already read almost all Nebula award novels, and finally got to this.
I have never read a book more annoying to read than this one, holy fucking shit.
One sentence the MC is talking to some cyborg Asian chick the next hes running away from who knows what and by the end of the paragraph hes in a completely different place fantasizing about cocaine. The author dedicates most of the text to the aesthetic of the setting but does very little with it.
I'm 60 pages in, does it get better? I really want to like it but the way its written is just horrible.
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>>8354220
I couldn't get past the first 5 pages
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>>8354220
I'm getting a lot out of it. you might just be paying attention to the "aesthetics" but It's got heart.
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neuromancer is one of my favorites, but it's primarily about style.
Name a journalist/essayist as honest and epic as George Orwell.
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>>8354193
David Foster Wallace
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>>8354227
Different species of writer.
Orwell is the GOAT among political writers.
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>orwell
>honest
>"epic"
no (you)
Anonymous
Multilingual Dialogue in Literature 2016-08-03 03:25:19 Post No.8354188
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Multilingual Dialogue in Literature 2016-08-03 03:25:19 Post No.8354188
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Multilingual Dialogue in Literature
Anonymous
2016-08-03 03:25:19
Post No. 8354188
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Say a character in a story knows two languages, for example English and French. Most of his dialogue is in English, but he has conversations in French sometimes. Since the reader probably doesn't know both languages, it would be harsh to just put both languages out there and expect the reader to use a translator or something. At the same time, however, using one language to represent another while saying it's another language (ex: "he said in french: what the hell") is like using a white actor to play a Japanese samurai (it's unprofessional).
So how have writers reconciled this predicament? I can't think of any novels that contain such dialogue or plot devices. However, I'm sure such things are commonplace for writers in multilingual countries.
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>>8354188
You've basically listed both schools of thought on the subject. It really boils down to how much you expect from your audience. Hemingway wrote dialogue in English and just expected people to remember that because the scene was set in one place or another that the conversations taking place were in the language of the land, unless otherwise noted. Joyce put in fucking Romanian jokes and said fuck you.
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A good device would be a footnote with an approximate translation. It's what I'd do if I was in the position described in your post.
It would be unnecessary to the polyglot reader, but gives a chance to the non-speaker to understand the meaning of foreign phrases. It also would mean not having to directly translate, as in your example. This would be more professional, as you said as well.
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I was reading McCarthy recently and he left dialogue in Spanish. Just finished Taipei, and Lin chose only to say in English, "she said in Taiwanese" or whatever.
Many of the authors that this board loves expect you to be fluent in at least Latin to get their jokes. Reading Nabokov or Joyce without knowing the classics is like watching a movie without sound. Those fuckers make puns in nine languages without any cue it's happening. Then you've got scifi/fantasy books that tend toward the opposite because no one else is Tolkein, about to make up languages, and it's almost impossible to accurately portray linguistic variation in a full world.
You've brought up a good question with many answers
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How would you rate him as an author?
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>>8354182
He's figured out how to sell ebooks and make a business of it based on title alone and he probably has fun while doing it.
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haven't read anything he's written but based on a few-seconds' scan of his twitter, he seems pretty hilarious
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Things have gone too far.
>critics called shakespeare a hack in his time
WTF???
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And he was. It's a strange coincidence that so many of his works turned out to be sublime.
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I remember my english teacher in 9th grade told me how people would basically have to decide on going to a play or going to watch a cow die
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This happens with a lot of authors.
If they're good, call them shit.
Once their influence is no longer deniable, claim them as your own and define the terms on which they are to be interpreted.
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This book was a minor meme here for a while.
Woolf, Nietzsche, and Henry James all adored it (James with some reservations). I'm thinking of checking it out.
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>he hasn't read middlemarch
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>>8354145
>serious meme
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discuss
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lol bump
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I haven't read this but Book of Numbers is a modern classic
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Critical reception Edit
The book received highly positive reviews from critics. The New York Observer stated Witz . . . "[is] the sort of postmodern epic that arrives like a comet about once every decade, like Infinite Jest or Gravity's Rainbow. Like any epic, it defies summary and overflows with puns, allusions, digressions, authorial sleights of hand and structural gags-in the tradition of Thomas Pynchon, James Joyce, Jonathan Swift and Laurence Sterne."[1] Its extravagant imagined world also suggests William Burroughs and Hunter Thompson, as well as the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch. Its voice, however, is consistently in the rhythms and vocabulary of New York Yiddish.
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I became an avid reader like three months ago and I can't stop. I stopped watching tv and I don't spend much time on 4chan anymore.
Here's how I did it.
-Remember the average person reads like zero books a year. If you read 5 pages a day, you are 5 pages above the average person
-Don't force yourself to read. Commit to read 5 pages a day. I swear after three days you'll feel like reading more and after a month or so you should be reading 50-100 pages a day for pleasure
-Read various books at the same time. When I grab a difficult book or one that makes me sleepy I grab another and switch. This should refresh your head. Keep them thematically different. I read economics and fiction.
-It isn't a race. Reading slowly won't make you sleepy that fast. Try to acknowledge what books are for you to read fast and which aren't.
-Buy the physical copies. When you get the books from your own money you'll feel the need to read them to avoid the feel of wasting your money.
-Start with books highly discussed here so you feel motivated to discuss.
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Keep going OP.
Read read read. And don't forget to have fun.
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Pasta, good pasta.
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What's the best free program to write with? New computer doesn't come with Microsoft Word.
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I don't suggest Word anyways, I'm trying to create a manuscript to self-publish with and it is a very big pain in the ass.
Look for whatever program lets you decide what pages you can have your headers and footers on.
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Writemonkey
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Try Libre Office.
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King of /lit/
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Jeez Adrian Brody lookin a bit rough there haha
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>>8353764
looks like a nerd kek
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nigga look like a bird
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Who is the best writer alive?
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>>8353754
pinchin
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>>8353754
krasznahorkai
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Franzen
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Is there any point on writing a diary?
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My diary, desu.
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I find it refreshing and helps me keep track of my shit.
I have over 150 .org files and try to keep a daily update.
Pretty entertaining as well.
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>>8353751
To take shit out of your head
Literally a mental toilet
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>he words in Latin or French, in an English-speaking book, without a translation attached
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>English-speaking book
>latin/french
very easy to just look up or guess(eh..) the meaning if theyre familiar words. But you'd probably benefit a lot from learning some of the basics of french if you read a lot of books that do this. I'm only intermediate level in French and don't have trouble at all with books that do this(Ulysses, Demons, for example)
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I agree OP. All popular editions should contain translations. You can't expect more technical texts to translate everything though.
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>>8354248
Hon hon hon!
No.
English speakers dont want to see that shit randomly thrown in an English sentence, unless you have a fkng footnote