Archived threads in /lit/ - Literature - 3917. page

>>7990137
why don't you ask your professor and see what he thinks?

>>7990139
she loves them
ive never read them
and id like to know what you memers think

>>7990142
random ramblings of a syphilitic bum

just visit Greenwich Village and buy some hobo artist a drink

Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert Putnam I think is a good alternative to Toqueville.

Disseminates and modernizes most of the relevant content, but if you want to see a perspective of a foreigner looking into how American democracy succeeded (compared to French democracy which was initially a failure) then yeah it's ok I guess. I've only read excerpts though and I prefer Putnam.

>>7990170
Interesting.

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>>7990131
It's pretty comfy, and the details are worth it. Don't expect too much insight though, mostly comparisons to (as the other anon said) European and especially French democracy.

I've started reading pic related and its a good companion piece for its insight into the working order and labor class.

>>7990109
Reasonable alt-lit, OP.

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>>7990102

>>7990102

>le david mitchell face

They all wrote mediocre bodice-rippers about nauseating self-inserts.

Emily. Anne is underrated and Charlotte is overrated (Charlotte's books start well but are dull and uninspired at the finish).

>>7990081
Emily is the only one worth reading

>worthy of a 21th century reader

Sounds crude, not what I wanted to express, should have left it at "is it accurate".

>>7990010
Kuhu kohta sa kolisid, et leidsid nii palju raamatuid?

Soovita häid Eesti kirjanduse raamatuid palun. Ma lugenud ainult Tammsaaret, teised tunduvad trashid.

>>7990010
It's THE book about the fall of roman empire

>>7990002
I will never look at The Ego and It's Own the same way ever again after that pic.

>>7990036
*Its

I'm retarded sometimes.

>>7990002
>Did he ever touch on free will and whether or not that was a spook?
He didn't and he probably wouldn't have considered it a spook since a) it doesn't meet the formal requirements: spook doesn't simply mean "not true" or "made up", but specifically a concept that exerts authority over the internal desires of the individual. The concept of "free will" does not seem to be capable of doing this.

b) On the contrary, getting rid of spooks doesn't really make sense if you argue against free will, because you need it in order to pursue your desires after getting un-spooked. Actually, arguing against free will doesn't really do anything because there is no practical way of 'acting upon the insight that free will doesn't exist'. Also Stirner wrote about will more explicitly in The Untrue Principle of Our Education, if you want to check that out. [as for "no free will", even people who explicitly deny free will spend the rest of their work tacitly treating humans as agents who make choices, see la Mettrie and Nietzsche for example]

>>7989982
You are a phony and a hypocrite.

Spend the money on the gym or a gift for your mom instead.

Fuck you poser.

>>7989995
But I like going to Dublin more than I like going to the gym.
Can't a guy just try and have some fun? I don't think Joyce was trying to start a fucking cult.

>>7990005
Goddamn it.
I could have made some pun about how I'd rather go to Jim than gym.

fuck!

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>>7989857
Pretty good summary. I'm familiar with Seraphim Rose but haven't read anyway.

> Liberalism redefines truth as an object, not something which reveals itself

Orthodoxy is stronger for having denied the modern impulse to equate "Truth" with "Knowledge." Rose is right to point out that from this mistaken position emerges a lot of problems of our age.

I will add, however, that a Thomist position should not fall into this trap.

>>7990799
I don't think it would, though I also think Scholasticism absolutely came out of the secularist movement in Islam, and Scholasticism absolutely laid the foundations for liberalism, although liberalism perverted it

>>7989857
>fell for the "Nietzsche was a nihilist" meme

>Anti-consumerist=marxist
Wew lad

Well, Arthur Miller was pretty well known for being anti-capitalist. His play All my Son's is about how there's more to life than the American dream of making money, the play points out the flaws in American society back then. Like the play points out how people equate love for their family with how much money they can make for them, no matter the cost

>>7989898
I'm not saying Miller was a Marxist, but I think it is a critique of capitalism and its functionality, and not just consumer culture

>>7989797
Oops, should clarify, what are your favorite works of his?

>>7989797
>some of it is really, really bad
Which ones?

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>>7989797
>some of it is really, really bad

Either Fra Lippo Lippi or The Lady of Shallot

>>7989775
you've made me remember my gcses
thanks i guess

right now, it's A Burnt Ship by John Donne

>>7989748
It doesn't hold up well in the 20th century.

It was like the YA novel of its time.

I bet Capote was ashamed to have helped her out so much, and was even more ashamed when this hot garbage won a Pulitzer.

It doesn't even hold up by the fourth page.

My favorite authors are Thomas Pynchon and David Foster Wallace. My favorite novel is Finnegans Wake.

>5. Read a lot.

“Reading is the creative center of a writer’s life. I take a book with me everywhere I go, and find there are all sorts of opportunities to dip in. The trick is to teach yourself to read in small sips as well as in long swallows. Waiting rooms were made for books–of course! But so are theater lobbies before the show, long and boring checkout lines, and everyone’s favorite, the john.”

>6. Write one word at a time.

“In an early interview (this was to promote Carrie, I think), a radio talk-show host asked me how I wrote. My reply–’One word at a time’– seemingly left him without a reply. I think he was trying to decide whether or not I was joking. I wasn’t. In the end, it’s always that simple.”

>7. Write every day.

“The truth is that when I’m writing, I write every day, workaholic dweeb or not. That includes Christmas, the Fourth, and my birthday (at my age you try to ignore your goddam birthday anyway)… When I’m writing, it’s all the playground, and the worst three hours I ever spent there were still pretty damned good.”

>8. Write for the joy of it.

“Yes, I’ve made a great deal of dough from my fiction, but I never set a single word down on paper with the thought of being paid for it… Maybe it paid off the mortgage on the house and got the kids through college, but those things were on the side–I did it for the buzz. I did it for the pure joy of the thing. And if you can do it for joy, you can do it forever.”

>I really like this book but I really don't understand what's going on

>>7989720
I mean, I could appreciate the story telling and I could understand the first two chapters just fine but at chapter three I just lost it. The entire book he's talking about Kurtz and then you meet him and there is nothing defining him in anyway, Marlow doesn't even talk to him very much so why does Marlowe act like they where buddy buddy and that Kurtz was just the best thing since sliced bread?

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The purpose for Marlow's journey is more or less that the Company is scared shitless of Kurtz. The reason for this is essential to understanding the entire book.
From the outset, Marlow detests the Europeans he encounters all along the way. He detests and mocks them, especially when it comes to their inefficiency. The trip with the Company is leading him to a complete rejection of Europe and civilized society.
Kurtz is what he moves towards along the river, both literally because that's the target and metaphorically because Marlow is becoming more like Kurtz. Kurtz is the completed rejection of society, to the point that he has joined the savage wilderness and now rules it.
This terrifies the Company, because Kurtz was an ivory supplier who could get shitloads of the stuff. Absurd amounts. Then he just stops giving a fuck and sends them nothing. This is not ok with them at all, so Marlow has to go figure out what the deal is. The ivory is not the point -- the point is that he achieved dominion over the natives, the savages, and no longer wants to be part of them. He sees himself as something completely separate.
When Marlow sees Kurtz he understands what Kurtz has done and how he has reached this point, and has mixed feelings. Here is the end result of the path he's going along -- rejection of society in the form of the Company will turn him into Kurtz. But he sees what Kurtz has, and does not want it. He sees it as base, primal, as below him as the Company at the opposite side of the spectrum. So he takes a fascination with Kurtz, but rejects his life as well.
Kurtz's fiancee and the native woman highlight the extent of how far he fell. He had an entire life in Europe that he has lost all interest in, and now in fact actively hates.
Marlow's conflicted feelings prevent him from revealing this to the fiancee back home. He cannot tell the truth to her, and the world he is from seems as alien as Africa did. Instead he returns to a life of traveling aboard ships, which is where we find him at the beginning of the novel. Here, he follows his own sort of middle ground and finally feels content, which is why the frame story on the Nellie repeatedly uses images enlightenment to describe him.