Archived threads in /lit/ - Literature - 3585. page

>hasnt read Gaddis

HAW HAW

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>>8180034
why are DFW and TP held in the highest distinction of writers today?

>>8180044
they're novel and popular

>>8179919
Why don't you read some easier books just for fun, then gradually build it up. Have there be a degree of transition, it might increase your enjoyment of books.

>>8179919
I had to read House of Leaves for a class quick too, I feel you.

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>have the flu
>depressed
>don't work out
>don't read
>just spend all day on the internet and eat burgers

got a couple short stories published
trashed half a novel because rl drama
i am confused about what my new project is

>>8179888
>writing career

DON'T DO THAT.jpg

Seriously, don't. Daily reminder the most successful books of all times were written by people who weren't "professional writers".

>>8179928
I don't think writing career implies you do it as a full time job anyway

>throwaway practice stuff

the breeze blew, and my cheek grew cold. I felt the dampness of my sorrow lifted by the warm southern wind and carried off into the sunset that sat before me. it sprawled indissoluble across the awesome canvas seated at the head of the world, a great luminous golden crown meant to be marveled by the constituents of god. trees trembled and grass shivered as the gust pushed through them with an indifferent insistence on carrying onward without a loss of haste. I took in the moments as deeply as I could, envying the airs unwieldingness and unforgivingness- if only i had half the courage found in the invisible force. that was the entire reason I was even standing in the field. I let her be stolen from right in front of me, I stood and watched and geeked anxiously while the love of my life was swept off her feet. every second since then has been a tortorous reminder, every item and action a hot iron pressed to my hand, one continuous stream of inevitable emotional self-torment. even immediately after, the cooling of the nervous sweat that had collected at my collar instead stung like molten wax poured over the nape of my neck, telling me I should have stopped it instead of condensate like a forgotten glass of milk. the weak knees that barely found the reserve to pedal my bike away from the terrible scene were only weak from resisting the urge to crumble to ground in disglorious defeat. the hot sun that beat upon my skin took note from the manner of my wracking mind, so oppressive and overbearing the inability to think clamped my muscles rigid. it had fallen significantly since then, now dipping its toe into the horizon, and with it the heat, giving way to the cool atmosphere of summer twilight. so too had my emotions worked off their heat, subsiding to a dull roar settled in the very back of my mind. I gazed almost slackjawed in apathy at the creepingly purple sky as the thunderous almighty finale of the day eased into the soft hued innocence of the night. a handful of stars pricked the darkening hemisphere, with the light of venus tearing a pinhole between the clashing evening colors. the spectacle only served as a stark contrast to the brutal ugliness that had thrashed at my innards all day. a buzzing and stinging interrupted my reverie, a sign of the needled onslaught about to feast upon my flesh. disinterested in being turned into mosquito fodder i gathered my things and my thoughts and set across the field, walking into the gaping hole left in the sky after the sun abandoned it.

The end to a flash fiction piece i wrote a while back. If there's interest, i'll post the rest. I know it's melodramatic but hey, come on.


It is only now that I have found the clarity of mind to write you. Stay away, I beg you. If you come to collect me, I will surely tear out your throat with my nails. There is something in this town that must rise from the springs and sewers underneath the city and into the air which we breathe. Opium of sorts, killing pain and worry and instead making my life a beautiful life just walking and admiring myself and everything. Your world is no longer a part of mine. I neglect to care about anything. It is back now, rising up from beneath the carpet that my feet, now blue and veiny, grow cold as I write to you. Perhaps I will not mail this. The idea is less appealing to me by the second. You must understand: we are not like other people. We do not sleep; and we do not hardly ever need to eat. But the hunger, the exhaustion, it does not escape us. We walk smiling but there is no joy within us. Our stomachs are vacant and like vacuums which threaten to consume the flesh on our bodies, bringing us pains of starvation we cannot ward off and are always with us. Our eyes are as heavy as the moon and at every second they are close to collapsing. Our heads are filled with a tired fog that obscures thought and vision and we yearn endlessly to fall to our knees and then to our back and sleep forever where we lay. Yes: we are tired and we are hungry and our suffering is not relieved in the slightest with the opium that pierces each breath. Yes: we are tired and, yes: we are hungry.
Yes: we are beautiful.

>>8179910
>It is back now, rising up from beneath the carpet that my feet, now blue and veiny, grow cold as I write to you

there are a couple of spots like this that are written very poorly, to the point of incomprehensibility. fix those and make it less young adult and it should be better

I'm not sure this is true. I think a lot as I read. Interesting sentences are like seeds for a dark garden. What grows from them can be very different from the progenitors.

>>8179556
Literally "I sucked 5 cocks before lunch today": The post.

Yeah, no. I think about shit when I read.
>>8179556
But you're still a faggot for putting it this way

Have some pasta instead:

People don't change. You can try to change, and you can pretend to be the person you wanted to change into, and in effect you will be no different than if you had changed, except that it will require constant unceasing effort on your behalf to maintain your pretensions, and the slightest lapse will send you sliding immediately back to who you were before. Someone who is "naturally" that person maintains their behaviour without effort - someone who changes into that person will never do anything more than pretend, and the pretension will be constant and demanding.

It's why anti-suicide activists kill themselves out of the blue 30 years after they "beat" it. They never beat it. It was hounding them for the entire time, and all they ever did was pretend. It's why fat people who lose weight get fat again. It's why criminals reoffend despite their best intentions. Plus, you have so little control over your upbringing that you have practically zero input into what your "natural" state is going to be. You might as well be born that way for all you can change it. In this sense, some people are simply born to be miserable. Some people are born broken and they will never be mended.

>>8179355
Not sure I understand. Are you telling me to kill myself?

Not saying I wouldn't, I'm just afraid of the prospect

my diary desu

>>8179309
Lmao, what. To me he just seemed as a super chill guy

no, he just had a superior brain and thought patterns than your own

hence your inability to comprehend the sublime beauty of this book

She doesn't look like that man at all.

>>8179190
Write about the struggles of being a shut-in.

This dumb ass question gets asked every week on this board. Experience helps but its not necessary. There is nothing about literature that must only come from experience. Literature is removal, in fact it essentially has nothing to do with experience. That's literally the whole point - to travel beyond your own borders, to remove yourself from yourself. You're not thinking about it right.

>>8179130
just dont finish them
if you are not intrested then its not worth reading
read philosophy

>>8179137

Don't say that, there'll be plenty of parts in books for new readers that they will find a slog to get through, or dry, or too long.

If he's bored in a book now he won't be able to finish philosophy anyway.

>>8179130

Why not post the books you're reading and can't finish op and say the problem with them.

>>8179130
damnnn...... She probably has fine taste in literature.

>>8178632
No, you Don't deserve friends

>>8178632
Suffers from classic worldbuildingitis; each book grows increasingly devoid of actual plot. Plus they brought in that hack Sanderson to write the last one.

The World of Time as a whole is very entertaining. I really loved the world, the magic, most of the characters, the history etc. Book seven, eight and nine are a bit slower but still entertaining, book ten is a whooole lot slower, but book eleven really picks up and twelve, thirteen and fourteen by Sanderson are pretty entertaining as well. Recommended.

The critic's list is much more accurate: Lolita and two Joyce novels in the top three. Everything in that list, barring Tolkein, is trash of the lowest order but that goes without saying.

>>8178546
Whats wrong with 1984? I personally enjoyed it and thought ti was written well

>>8178631
It's fine as a science fiction novel but it's not in the same league as Nabokov or Joyce's work or any of the other authors who deserve to be on a list of the best fiction. The best novels are works of art, 1984 certainly isn't a work of art.

>>8178474
Are you on Adderall?

>>8178489
Nah but I'm tired as fuck right now so if my post was shittily constructed I apologize

>>8178497
>Nah but...
There's your problem bruv. Ask yourself what you've written here when you're tweaking. It's the secret of great art to be sleep deprived, terribly sober, terribly depressed, tweaking, or tripping. However you get there, your answer will be found

I forget to take notes most of the time, but when I do I usually use a word doc

>>8178319
But that interrupts reading. You have to get up and go to your computer chair.

If you have a notepad you can quickly jot it down without moving much.

>>8178308
I write notes as I read. If I ever leave a non-fiction book for a while and come back to it the notes usually help get back into it.

>>8178251
Ride the Tiger

>>8178251
Trotsky- The Revolution betrayed

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the theory of the leisure class by Thorstein Veblen exposes just how silly everything really is

>>8177975
does it feel good to possess literally no originality?

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Okay. Hit me with your best shot.

>>8177975
dank