Archived threads in /lit/ - Literature - 4026. page

At the beginning

it doesnt matter

I read The Stranger a few days ago and loved it. Now I'm reading The Myth of Sisyphus, which is my first attempt at philosophy, and it's really tough to get my head around. Any advice? I'm beginning to think I should have started with the Greeks.

No but it helps

No, how could you ever prove something so trite as "all humans are inherently evil."

You can't even define evil because it's a spook.

The soviet model just proved that bureaucratic centralism doesn't work in the long run. The soviet style planning system had a number of important achievements to its credit. It introduced mass production and greatly increased the output of a number of key industrial sectors, such as oil and steel. It produced the huge number of weapons necessary to emerge victorious from World War II. It provided full employment. It produced the world’s first earth satellite. It invested heavily in human capital. Its educational system was good by international standards, and produced large numbers of qualified people. During the 1950s the USSR enjoyed a golden age with growth rates much in excess of those in the USA or UK. However, soviet planning also had a number of problems. These included: shortages of consumer goods; inability to take full advantage of the world market for goods, capital and people; slow home-grown technical progress; and living standards that lagged behind those in capitalist countries. In addition, the high growth rates of the 1950s obviously gradually declined.

The soviet model was based on the method of material balances which was first developed in the 1930s during the USSR's rapid industrialization; superior input-output style planning was never actually adopted because the material balance system had become to entrenched in the Soviet bureaucratic system.

>>7878183
Yes?

No?

Maybe?

>>7878162
you gotta modernize then go beyond that I mean the word is self-explanatory.

>>7878162
You gotta be contrarian that's all

>>7878162
Find something or someone that was going on before you and call it modern

no, since it doesn't matter, just read whichever you prefer

inb4 >>>reddit

>>7878153
1984. It's much shorter compared to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy which is actually the first book in it's series. The others being:
The Resteraunt at the End of the Universe, Life, the Universe, and Everything
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish
Don't Panic.

All of them have upwards of twenty five chapters. With Don't Panic being the shortest at twenty five and the finality of the series and So Long and Thanks for all the Fish having 40 plus and epilogue chapter.

I don't know, it doesn't matter.

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>>7878129
A solid 8. Always a good re-read. Ward's translation—

>translation

—is a good guiding light for modern prose style.

Just finished it. Very neat message about society. 8.5/10

>>7878071
Yeah it's fine. Then read Foucault's Pendulum or save it for last. It's his best work and very personal.

He's the Italian Dan Brown.

>>7878074
Dan Brown is italian him

>>7878041
>film should be a direct adaptation of the original source!! I can't understand how you could make a movie based on the universe of a book and still make a good film.

Way to spot a pleb.

And btw, if you knew jodorowski, he doesnt really care about the plot, and you shouldn't too

>2016
>falls for the Jodorowsky's Dune meme

>>7878041

it would've been one of the greatest movies of all time. everything jodorowsky touches turns into gold, like he's some kind of freaky alchemist or something . . .

>>7878021

I'm writing The Bible 2, so I really have no fear of how they might interpret it, because it should basically explain itself.

>>7878021
Writing my own commentaries under pseudonyms desu.

>>7878032
And what of understanding the commentaries?

It's endless

existentialism, i'm still in college after 6 years so i think it's going great.

OP here. Up until the age of ~20, I was like most people in the west and lived a life of pretty carefree hedonism. I'd go out drinking/partying at least a couple of nights a week, and try to sleep with strangers. I'd say I was pretty much on autopilot, I wasn't really happy but I was a long way from being depressed.

Then I had a difficult breakup, the depression kicked in, and I started to live a much more stoic life. I stopped caring about the material things I used to go after, and tried to just cultivate the things that made me happy. I stopped drinking, gradually lost contact with my hedonist friends, started doing charity work, and began to pay more attention to mental and physical development. Three years later, and I haven't really got any pleasure out of this way of life either. I'm not religious and I can't bring myself to be, so I can't access any of the deeper spiritual happiness that this way of life should bring. The nicer and more compassionate I am to other people, the more they seem to take advantage of me. I'm unironically having an existential crisis because I can think of nothing important enough to give my life any sort of real purpose, so life just sort of passes me by and I'm completely indifferent to it. I want to re-connect with it and feel really alive again, but I don't know how. I'm considering becoming a hedonist again just to get these base pleasures if nothing else, but I'm not sure that's the right path.

Any wise philosophers got some advice for me?

>>7877933
How do you actually live a life according to existentialism? Isn't existentialism more a problem, and a particular branch of philosophy the solution?

>http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-weapon-1578808.html
This sounds like a 40 page digression in a Pynchon novel.

Pol ;^) is always right

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>>7877531

Get a job you piece of shit

>>7877518
go to a library

>>7877522
I'm on college for that reason you twat.

>>7877417

You have to be into Muse

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same

>>7877417
Lick her feet.

>>7877399
Well Phil, he's great and all, but had the great misfortune of being born at the same time as Walt and Melville.
Pity it took us till Pynchon to give the Pilgrims the recognition they deserve...

>>7877409
I will agree that Melville is the superior author - perhaps superior to any other author in the English language - but I cannot pretend to understand the alleged appeal of Walt Whitman. He strikes me as rather a talentless little paedophile.

His short stories are also nice OP

picked up a complete collection at a thrift store recently

>>7877347

>i'm 22 and have no college degree or credits. i also have no idea what i want to do with my life. what's the best option for me besides offing myself?

Welcome to 4chan, where 80% of everyone who browses this board is in the same predicament as you.

Don't off yourself, stop jerking off, stop listening to faggot /mu/ shit. Stop taking life too seriously.

>>7877351
i quit jerking off and drinking. have been lifting three times a week and meditate every morning. feel like i'm getting my shit together i just don't know where to go from here.

>>7877347
find a roommate and start getting your associate's degree while working part-time