While the points being made are mostly valid critiques or concerns regarding utilitarianism, determinism and ideas of universal morality, is there a particular reason that Dostoyevsky decided to couch these beliefs in one of the most tonally obnoxious and contrarian narrators imaginable? I feel like I'm reading TVTropes blogposts from 2009. I'm confused as to whether this character is to be pitied or laughed at for his absolute repugnance.
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He is free to be a scoundrel and he choses to be one.
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>>7789590
The intellectual (or hyper-conscious) person cannot act except in contradictory terms since he understands the perspective of the Other person that he is expected to be in opposition with. As D states: "t was not only that I could not become spiteful, I did not know how to become anything; neither spiteful nor kind, neither a rascal nor an honest man, neither a hero nor an insect. Now, I am living out my life in my corner, taunting myself with the spiteful and useless consolation that an intelligent man cannot become anything seriously, and it is only the fool who becomes anything."
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>>7789590
Nobody else felt embarrassed. He had to be embarrassing enough for the whole world. I typed that as a joke, but it's sort of interesting to view him as a savior figure now that I think about it.
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I loved reading The Metamorphosis and In the Penal Colony. I thought I would read The Trial next but when I searched for one to buy I found one that was called "The Trial: A New Translation Based on the Restored Text (The Schocken Kafka Library)" with almost double the page count of the regular one.
How does this work? I know that The Trial was unfinished, but it still had an ending, right?
Which one should I get?
>inb4 hur dur he still buys books
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juss get an e-reader and download every version like me
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Its the version that includes an alternative ending: .k. Is a nazi vampire
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>>7789537
The Castle was unfinished.. The regular version of The Trial is pretty complete within itself. I wouldn't bother with some kind of hashed-together updated edition if i were you, it will probably only detract from the experience.
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Just read this great play (pic related), and absolutely loved it. The play is becoming a favorite of mine?
Anything else like this? I just read Death of a Salesman too, and rather enjoyed that as well.
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King Lear. It turned me from a normal happy human being into JUST
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What do you guys think of this book?
I'm about a quarter of the way through it and I think it's really eye-opening
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>>7789405
it's pretty great, I keep coming back to this book every year or so just to refresh my head even tho Crimethinc havent released anything better. Some years ago this was the bible of the anarchist scene in my city.
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>>7789905
It's really making me question my own moral ethics and beliefs
The Builder
By Werido Sheep
Bob was sitting in the bar smoking a cigarette. Bob glanced at the tv and Handy Manny was up their, talking about how great he his. Bob took a big puff. He took a sip of his scotch and got up. It was raining so he put his yellow hood on, still smoking the cigarette. When he gets outside he throws the cigarette to the ground and smashes it with his foot. He looked around at all the buildings and cars. He thinks about the good times of being Americas number one builder, being Bob The Builder. He calls a taxi so he can go home. The taxi pulls up and Bob gets in. Bob arrives home and the only one home is his cat. Everyone has died over the years. He walks into the door and the cat is sleeping on the coach again. He lights another cigarette. He looks at the picture of him and his wife. A tear went down Bob's eye. He looks at the cat and goes to pet it. The cat wakes up and groans at him. Bob gets an angry but sad look in his eye. He goes to his basement. He opens up his gun closet. He has one pistol and that's it. He grabs and pets his Cat on last time. He goes to the next door neighbor and steals their car. His going to Handy's mansion. When he gets their he sneaks around the guards and finally makes it to Handy's room. Handy is sleeping with his wife. He locks the door behind him and goes towards Manny. "Get up" Bob tells Manny. Manny opens his eyes and sees a gun in his face. "Get up" Bob says. Manny's wife wakes up and is now terrified. "What's going on?" Manny asks. "I said get up" Bob says in anger. Manny gets with his hands up. "The wife too." The wife gets up with her hands up. "Come on man, I'll give you anything" Manny says. Bob gets closer to Manny. Manny looks at his wife Samantha. "Kill me but not my wife." "So you just gave me permission?." Four security guards come in with guns and scream "PUT THE GUN DOWN!." Bob looks at the guards and looks back to Manny. "Please God forgive me of my sins" Bob says and then he shoots and kills Manny. The guards shoot down Bob and the wife gets shot down in the cross fire. Bob lays on the ground bleeding to death. In his final moments his entire life flashes before his eyes. All the moments of beauty, tenderness and horror flash. At that moment he realizes that it didn't have to be this way, he could have just admitted to his sin and not say he didn't sin, he could be suffering in prison right now but now he's going to be suffering in hell.
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Goooood Jab! I'm a faggot! I love boys with big penis
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What is lit equivalent of Salem?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IvoN4YUF4o
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>>7789378
John Green, Stephanie Meyer, Ready Player One, and other shitty authors because Salem is shit.
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An author equivalent of Salem needs a nickname instead a human name.
And self-published.
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>>7789380
very nice
So, from your point of non-memetic view, is The Recognitions really that hard?
I'm considering my options and, currently, I have to decide on which books I'll spend my money with, and that geezer Gaddis has been scratching my fancy all the way down due now. That being, English is also my second language and I've been threading nicely through anglophone literature, from Sherlock Holmes, my first exposition to foreign works of literature, to The New York Trilogy, my last read. So, considering that I'm familiar with some hard-ish books (Grande Sertão: Veredas, V., 2666 and The Portrait of The Artist as A Young Man are some of them that come to mind) and that I have a dictionary, how readable/understandable is The Recognitions for a non-native?
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I'm reading it at the moment, the hardest part is all the references to Flemish painting and religious stuff. www.williamgaddis.org/recognitions/ will help for any references you're stuck on. You should be fine though, go for it.
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>>7789376
Grasping its symbolism and messages and references is extremely difficult, yes, but most of the time the prose isn't too bad. I would recommend reading it ASAP. You should also check out Gaddis' chum--William Gass.
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Hey /lit/,
I'm wondering if there is a known paradox in literature that goes something like this:
"A man goes through hardship and a process of learning to build a house. Did the man change his environment, or did the environment change him?"
Because you can't bring about any change without changing yourself, even if only slightly. Meanwhile, the effect on your surroundings is probably minuscule when looking at the big picture.
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>>7789343
>Did the man change his environment, or did the environment change him?
That's not a paradox because both can happen and do happen in this case. They're not mutually exclusive.
Christians are taught this with a bible passage as well: Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.
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>>7789351
Interesting, thanks.
I've got one more: Is there a paradox involving an inability to trust one's own mind?
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Where do I start with Gothic Poetry?
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>>7789326
Probably Poe.
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>>7789399
Then Coleridge.
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NO LIGHT
Hearing all the wonders of death
I wish to experience that glory
To enter a world of angels and demons
God and the Devil
Leaving the boredom of this world
No more work and bills
No more slave work just to get a meal or two a day
Just getting ready to feast in Valhalla
As I prepare for the glory, put on my finest suit
I slit both my wrists
Lay in my king size bed which took me forever to afford
I look at all the things I own and laugh
I am finally free I think to myself
I leave no note and tell no one
After all, why bother? I will see them again soon enough
The pain in my wrist is gone now
I am close, I am so excited
I close my eyes and wait to see the light
At once I regret my actions
All I see is darkness.
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>>7789318
>Yfw
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The tarantula rattling at the lily’s foot
Across the feet of the dead, laid in white sand
Near the coral beach—nor zigzag fiddle crabs
Side-stilting from the path (that shift, subvert
And anagrammatize your name)—No, nothing here
Below the palsy that one eucalyptus lifts
In wrinkled shadows—mourns.
And yet suppose
I count these nacreous frames of tropic death,
Brutal necklaces of shells around each grave
Squared off so carefully. Then
To the white sand I may speak a name, fertile
Albeit in a stranger tongue. Tree names, flower names
Deliberate, gainsay death’s brittle crypt. Meanwhile
The wind that knots itself in one great death—
Coils and withdraws. So syllables want breath.
But where is the Captain of this doubloon isle
Without a turnstile? Who but catchword crabs
Patrols the dry groins of the underbrush?
What man, or What
Is Commissioner of mildew throughout the ambushed senses?
His Carib mathematics web the eyes’ baked lenses!
Under the poinciana, of a noon or afternoon
Let fiery blossoms clot the light, render my ghost
Sieved upward, white and black along the air
Until it meets the blue’s comedian host.
Let not the pilgrim see himself again
For slow evisceration bound like those huge terrapin
Each daybreak on the wharf, their brine-caked eyes;
—Spiked, overturned; such thunder in their strain!
And clenched beaks coughing for the surge again!
Slagged of the hurricane—I, cast within its flow,
Congeal by afternoons here, satin and vacant.
You have given me the shell, Satan,—carbonic amulet
Sere of the sun exploded in the sea.
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>>7789318
I love that OP
Tell me if this sounds plausible.
Finnegans Wake (Like The Divine Comedy and Ulysses) is encyclopedic.
It is an encyclopedia of The Forbidden, forcing it's readers to stretch their imaginations using obscure and often occult bodies of knowledge and the lost, bardic tradition of Irish poetry.
The result becomes a fall down the rabbit hole, which you couldn't survive long.without a sense of play and humor.
There's more, but those are some fundamental thoughts at the moment.
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What is Ulysses the encyclopedia of?
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>>7789303
edgy riddles ;)
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> when you realize Hegel already pre-empted Nietzsche's arguments
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>>>/reddit/
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Many of you seem to be lost and on the wrong board, contemplate these questions to see if you were accidentally on the /lit/ board when you should be posting on the /r9k/ board.
Did the thread image catch your attention due to a deep-seated feelings of anger towards women, that they are beholden to you, that you have been mistreated by them in some way because Grace and her friends in sixth grade wouldn't let you join in their game?
Do you lack social poise and confidence?
Do you frequently use the terms:
- normie
- roastie
- beta
- alpha
- stacey
If any of these apply to you, you may have the wrong board. No problem however just pop right back over to
>>>/r9k/
and converse with others like yourself.
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okay thread, important announcement, I looked
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COCAINE?
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I do lack social poise and confidence, but what has that got to do with reading books, eh?
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Would Raduan Nassar's books be too advanced for someone learning Portuguese? Also, why did he quit writing?
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he got bored with it an became a landowner. but i think he donated the land to some university. read a cup of rage. it focuses on the power struggles between men and women. themes fall sort of in line with maybe strindberg or foucault, but nassar is much more brutal in his approach and style.
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>>7789267
also, i've never read him in port., only eng. so i can't answer that question.
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>>7789256
It's not that hard but some imagery, semantic constructions and alusions may fly over your head. You should leave him, Machado and Guimarães Rosa to when you are both fluent and confortable with speaking, reading and writing in Portuguese. They are masters in what they did and I'm not trying to put you off, but, after all, some literary experiences are reserved to natives and, to a marginal extent, those who dedicate themselves to study a language to it's most peculiar and deep senses.
If you want to somewhat spoil your future fun, I'll tell you ro start with Um Copo de Cólera and then move to Lavoura Arcaica.
Also, where are you from, lad?
Sempre seu,
t. brasileiro
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How are you relaxing on this lazy tuesday afternoon, /lit/?
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>>7789247
OMG! Get that cold can off that book!
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I got memed so I'm starting with the Greeks.
Just finnished the third song of the Illiad and I'm liking it so far.
It's about as much work as reading the bible but it's way more rewarding and enjoyable to me (as an atheist).
Now I'm going to watch some Louis Theroux
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cringeworthy cap to be honest