The idea seem interesting, but is it well executed ?
Its was my least favorite book of his whle reading it, but about two thirds the way through it all came togeter and turned out to be one of his best.
>>7590642You liked the part with the circus and afterwards?
>>7590607
Just finished this last night. Personally I found it alright. The beginning is pretty good. Then a little over half way in there starts to be really long winded segments about religion, government, what it is to be a human, that kind of thing. Not that this is necessarily bad, but from someone that read this 50+ years after it came out, these are things I've heard many times before. The last 1/3 of the book picks up a little again but I found a lot of it kind of boring (but not bad). I'll also give Heinlein props on being slightly ahead of the times with some of this stuff. This book came out in '61 but it feels like something someone would have written during or after the hippie movement.
Has anyone read this?
What did you think?
I'm half way done and I'm wondering if it gets better.
I read it but did not reallt get that much out of it
Could be because my french isn't good enough
Still liked the atmosphere tough
it has a really cool looking cover. looks like something i'd pretend to read on a subway :)
André Breton dissed novels and novelists with all his heart, yet wrote a novel.
Hi /lit/, I need a recommendation for funny and lighthearted books that are still /lit/ approved. Are there any enjoyable books out there?
A Confederacy of Dunces?
I haven't read it yet myself, but I often see it recommended.
>2016
>enjoying books
>seeking /lit/ approval
Reddit detected
>>7590334
>reccing a book he hasn't even ready based on hearsay
Pls go
>>7590279
this is a cool single
i love that pale cocoon sound too, just wish there was more releases
I've started writing a book.
I expect it to be a difficult read. Some parts will be done as a sort of pastiche of the style of finnegans wake. Very postmodern style & narrative. I don't expect it to be very lengthy.
My question is this: how much of a nightmare is publishing going to be? I know it's usually hard for first time authors and it seems as though this will be a relatively "obtuse" book, lacking broad appeal. Also want to know about the feasibility of alternatives like self-publishing.
No one is going to read a book like that if it's your first novel. You're one of thousands to try their hand at something that has only been done well a hand full of times.
Self-publishing is viable if you want ten people to read your book.
I would advise writing short stories and getting them published. If you're good try sending in stories to McSweeney's and similar places. Try a hundred times. You won't be published over night.
Sit on this novel of yours until you have publications from reputable sources. Otherwise it will be entirely unread.
Being an author is a long road. I've been published seven times since 1995.
>>7589697
good advice on /lit/? that's not what i came here for!
>>7589697
I guess I should add, though, that university presses are a wonderful resource for publishing books like these.
Are you a student? If you really, truly feel you are a gifted writer and can skip the pedigree-building process to release something like that your university may very well publish it for you.
Also degrees mean a lot. If you aren't a student or graduated you almost certainly have to do what my above post advises.
Hi /lit/, didn't see a recent purchases thread, so I thought I'd make one. I just ordered these off of Amazon for my birthday next week, and on Saturday I'm going into town to buy a related book which I have on hold at the local bookstore (The Archaic Revival, also by Terence McKenna). So, that's me, I guess. Now you.
>>7588428
dude
weed
lmao
>>7588428
>that dude WEED phase
>McKenna, RAW, Leary
have fun, OP :)
>>7588428
That's exactly what I would read back in my senior year of high school. You'll get over the LSD phase & when you do, you will be a different man-- a better man. You will then move onto philosophy & read Nietzsche, Sarte, Schopenhauer, Voltaire, etc. Mark my words OP. But nonetheless, happy tripping!
/lit/, your mission, should you choose to accept, is to write something about something formless. For example, what is music? What are memories? Is a feeling substantial or a flush of chemicals?
Use any method you see fit, but try your damndest.
>>7587695
Do we say the name of the thing we're writing about? Or do we describe the thing without naming.
>>7587705
Just do whatever you feel comfortable with. You don't have to tell us, you can if you want. Just hit us with it, man.
A man sits down in isolation with nothing but his thoughts. His thoughts are a incoherent collection of images, some of which, is , of his own experience, others are his own imagination from which he doesn't know where they come from or go to.
He now ponders on about his own mind.
"What is a thought?"
"Is a thought information? Is a thought just a chemical process?Is a thought another plane of existence? Do we control our own thoughts? Why is a man's consciousness higher than those of beast? Do genetics determine ones consciousness?"
Eventually the man finds the answer he was not looking for. It was so distressing and disturbing than man chooses to take his own life.
The man's last words were
"Ignorance is bliss, Intelligence is bane."
Should I start with A Sportsman's Sketches or Fathers and Sons?
sketches
torrents of spring is an underdiscussed comfy piece by him
What did you buy today/rent/acquire. I found volume I of Joyce's Letters, published in 1957, and a copy of the Possessed published in 1936, along with a couple Hemingways.
>>7591443
Mike Lee's copy of Farewell to Arms, fuckin score mate. He is well known for his marginalia
>>7591443
Is the letter to Nora in there? You know the one
>>7591455
I hear you man, I ordered a Mike Lee edition through Amazon and got stuck with Andrew Shulman somehow...
Judge me and my poetry while giving me (un)constructive criticism
First one up is:
Sounds of Wood and Metal
In the corner
rarely used
these days
Once was my
strongest crutch
a rounded wooden box
A hole beneath
the metal strings
to capture their vibration
Though struggles
to keep a tune
when it does
Beautiful, harmonic
whispers flow
never needing to be loud
Always waiting
patiently for me
to use him
When I need
I know
I should more.
A name of
a company
once respected
Now out of business.
like my father
what remains
Is the name
printed high
proud origins.
So I pick up
again and play
fingers finding
Old homes
now just visitors
back now for
Nostalgia’s sake.
I’m not as good
as I once was
But sounds
of wood and metal
resonate in me
I don’t remember
every song
but I do
Know the major
and minor
chords he
Seems to be
proud of that.
proud of me.
you need to use punctuation. im sure this rhythm works in your head but to the reader I have no sense of what this is supposed to sound like. this is just from a first glance, and btw anyone who reads poetry seriously will immediately dismiss a poem like this with no real structure. practice writing in predetermined forms first, writing in free verse like this is extremely different to pull off correctly.
>>7591456
if you have any ideas of where to use punctuation to help it flow better I would very much appreciate it. I basically have no grasp on how that works in poetry and tried to use every end-line as a pause.
>>7591476
you need to start at the beginning. by the way the writing is fine though you could use stronger word choices and whatever but that's really secondary. an end line is never a pause, poetry works the same was as regular sentences, commas periods and everything. a change in stanzas without punctuation is a very slight pause. even reading it with every end line as a pause, the poem is insanely stilted and annoying to read. get a big book of poetry (theres a pretty good collection by harold bloom you should be able to find easily) and get deep into analyzing your favorites. things like syllable count, line length, punctuation, rhyme scheme, form (ballad, sonnet, etc.). there are plenty of resources out there about reading poetry aloud, if you look at these it will help you imagine what people are hearing in their heads when they read your work.
Is "the greater good" a concept created by evil men to justify their actions? Do men have the right to profess their cause as doing "the greater good", or is that in the realm of God?
selfishness is virtuous op, the greater good is a fascist spook
are there good books dealing with the pain of getting old?
(pic actually relevant)
yeat's poetry
>>7591373
not the pain but the feeling of it, then Wordsworth
Houellebecq is pretty much about how much it sucks to feel like a washed up cynical 45 year old about to die and who did nothing with his life.
What are some good books about the history of America and the United States? I'm not american so most of my life I only read about european history.
>>7591326
go big or go home
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_History_of_the_United_States
by the end of 2017 all 12 volumes will have been completed
Ecuador=North Dakota
Chile=Mississippi
Just mix mah shit up f4m!
>>7591326
not knowing your personal interests, i couldn't do much better than just telling you to look at the list of pulitzer prize winners in history and picking the ones on topics that interest you
hofstadter is a decent place to start if you really have no idea
Hi, pleb here
Recommend me something that is both entry level and good.
Death of ivan illych is my favourite book, if that helps
thank you
>>7591181
Bump ;(
The Iliad and the Odyssey
read the fucking sticky
Why do publishers always put pictures of philosophers on their seminal works from when they were older?
This pic graces many-a-cover of A Treatise on Human Nature.
>>7590919
But he was actually in his twenties when he wrote the thing, and probably would have looked something more swag like this.
>>7590919
Because that man is the very essence of patrician.
>>7590925
And what about this gremlin looking motherfucker? This pic graces the cover of the common Payne translation of his masterpiece World as Will and Representation.
The permanent archive is down at the moment, so don't rely on it to record anything of val-...
of val-...
>kek
seriously though, stuff like the links to the Gass scans won't last past a week once it gets archived, so save whatever you need.
There was a picture of an ass with a book pressing against I wanted to look up on the archive but it was down
It's how I found out actually
Also, I was wanting to search Donne and see what /lit/ had to say about him
>>7590835
This pine cone Pepe is in superb condition? Are you selling?
>>7591187
>>>/reddit/