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/lit/, can we get a bookstore thread going?
> today in the local book shop
> pick up Frankenstein, Of mice and Men, The Great Gatsby, Grapes of Wrath
> think I only have £25 in my wallet
> take the books to the counter, greeted by sweet elderly lady from behind the counter
> price comes up to £30
> say that I'm short by £5, so she scans a coupon to give me money off instead of putting back one of the books I wanted to buy
> pass her the money, not realising I actually had £35
> feel awkward when we both realise what's happened and apologise
> she tells me it's A-OK and that it's "just one of those days, really" and we both laugh about it
/lit/, could you have any more of a based bookshop worker? Share your comfy, awkward or interesting bookshop experiences here, please.
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>lonely older woman is impressed by my taste and tries to strike up a conversation
>i ignore her
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> not stealing books that are in the public domain
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>>7514671
> not adapting famous books in the public domain for television or film, making millions by not having to pay for the rights
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Anyone else remember the "forgotten" meme trilogy? Before Joyce, dfw, and Pynchon?
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curiosity bump
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>meme
You don't even know what the fuck that means.
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>>7513482
It truly is the forgotten trilogy.
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I am bored and drunk. Let us have a comfy Goodreads thread.
https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/2408134-sebastian
Currently reading some books I got for Christmas by Arno Schmidt.
Here have a music video of my favourite German band:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9iwT3HG-T8
I can't read when I am drunk, I only listen to music in this state of mind.
Merry Christmas /lit/
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Ho Ho Ho
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We had a goodreads thread like a week ago
https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/20574145-will
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>>7506644
It's like 12 at noon in Germany Sebastian. Drunk already?
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I want to become a better reader. I just read 16 pages of Plato but it took me like 50 minutes.
What can i do the become the best/fastest reader I can possibly be?
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Read more.
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>>7516565
>best/fastest reader
two conflicting goals
don't know if you read physical or not, but i usually highlight things in the .pdfs i read and write notes in the margins. it slows me down a shit ton but i feel like i grasp more and when i come back later having forgotten a bunch, i have a bunch of notes to look back on to refresh myself. i know that that's too much work for a lot of people, but i enjoy it
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>>7516565
just B.E yourself
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What aesthetic do you guys try to achieve? One you'd like to cultivate?
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>>7516503
What do you mean by 'aesthetic', anon? Can you give an example and why are you interested?
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>>7516503
i try to be myself.
cultivating an aesthetic is how you end up sounding try-hard or otherwise hackish
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>>7516503
v a p o u r
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tfw you realise the Pynch is going to die in your lifetime, probably sooner than later, since he's old as fuck. And then you realise that when he's gone there will never be anyone quite on his level writing novels in... probably ever. In a sense, when TRP dies, the whole art form will go out with him.
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>there will never be anyone quite on his level writing novels
I know he died recently, but David Foster Wallace was arguably better than Pynchon, since he combined Pynchon's icy braininess with warmth and a beating heart.
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lmao
delillo is better
not that it's saying much
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>>7516490
>icy braininess
cofnirmed for not having read pynchon
RUGGLES was a Lovin' Spoonful of a writer (is)
David Federast Wallops is a sterile computer with contrived emotion that resorts to the biological actions of the emotion centers to explain wow does it get any more detatched and icy than that?
you wont hear abstracted descriptions of organs in work in T.R.P. (unless the organs are SEXUAL(
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I'm page 133 of Taipei and am considering putting the book down. Of course I'm not going to ask you to tell me what to do lit, but for those of you who have read it, is there any reason to continue? The prose that was celebrated for being "disengaged" and representative of contemporary times is boring, superficial, and under developed. I think I see what Lin is trying to do but I don't think its revolutionary or thought out that well. Also nothing about Paul is redeeming and his true self never seems to be explored past a certain point. There are parts of the book that are pretty good, especially the first sixty pages or so. But the burgeoning romance with Erin is boring me. Either Lin's trick is to write a really shallow book that is a metaphor for modern times which is nauseating just to type or he is just kind of bad at writing. I know this is kind of rambly and maybe incoherent but what are your thoughts on Taipei?
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there's no payoff if that's what you're asking. it's more of the same, though he has a small epiphany at the end I guess.
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>>7516356
>he fell for a meme
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>>7516356
I think it's safe to assume he's "kind of bad at writing". I've read most of what he's written, and never in any of those works did he display a talent for writing. There's really no reason for you to continue reading.
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Was he a closet case?
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A closet case of what.
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>>7516264
He was a hack.
If there was a choice to be made between having Burroughs never live or have Hitler never live, I'd choose Burroughs. Because at least Hitler was competent in his craft and advanced it forward by about 40 years while the rest of the world was standing in bread lines.
Burroughs however, thanks to edgy teenagers, regressed the act of literature by about...oh, I don't know, a good 6500 years.
I only wish AIDS was killing faggots thirty years earlier.
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>>7516290
>Hitler was competent
No he wasn't.
Is the Iliad worth reading? Does it still hold up today in terms of complexity or depth of thought/ideas, or is it so well-regarded mostly because of its influence on other works? Not trying to bait.
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>>7516037
>Is the Iliad worth reading?
Yes.
>Does it still hold up today in terms of complexity or depth of thought/ideas
Yes.
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You know the answer already. but lets use this thread to talk about its importance anyway.
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>>7516037
No, it's just a bunch of boring descriptions of people fighting. Before they had action movies, that's what people back then got for excitement.
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Why haven't you resumed with the Romans yet, /lit/?
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>>7515851
because i literally just started with the greeks a few days ago
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>>7516136
Same. Just got the iliad. I'm starting the greeks at the VERY beginning
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Commencing with the Chinese
Anonymous
Books that women will never understand 2015-12-29 03:25:33 Post No.7515801
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Books that women will never understand 2015-12-29 03:25:33 Post No.7515801
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Books that women will never understand
Anonymous
2015-12-29 03:25:33
Post No. 7515801
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Post them, lads.
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Funny, you won't understand any of them either m8. Fuck off, this thread is old.
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>>7515807
I wonder who's behind this post
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>>7515807
>OP or how to trigger a roastie
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I think I finally 'get' the
>he reads translations
meme. For years I just assumed it was pseudointellectual wankery but I've come to realize the credence behind it after reading novels by Saramago, Boris Vian, Houllebecque and a few others.
When I was younger I enjoyed the shit out of P&V Russian translations and never saw a problem in the slightest but now I'm beginning to see how absolutely pointless it is to even read translated works by a lot of authors. The fire of their prose is completely extinguished.
My question, are there any authors worth reading in translation? So far I've enjoyed Proust and the Russian canon but that's it
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>he didn't read Odysseus in ancient Greek
what a pleb
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>>7515667
Barely relevant, but Douglas Hofstadter wrote an excellent book on literary translation titled 'Le Ton Beau de Marot'.
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>>7515704
Odyssey would literally be a perfect example of what I'm referring to. And everything else by Homer, for that matter, fucking trite and boring slog, yet it was literally those works which held together the Greek city-states and connected the Mediterranean culture and civilization.
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>87 years old
>Still conducts lectures
I think hell be fine
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>>7515593
i like this new meme :3
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>>7515593
>53
>under the ground
I think hell be fine
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>91 years old
>still writing the best shit since Joyce
I think hell be fine.
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EULIA!
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REDWALL!
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>Furries
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MARTIN!
>see book i want to read in a language i can't read
>take out the only translation in my library
>it's shit
>find a pdf online of a different translation
>it's shit
>research on different translations, find one that is said to be fantastic by people who's opinion I respect
>find pdf online purporting to be this translation
>get halfway into the book before realizing it isn't even the translation it claims to be, but is instead a far less acclaimed one
>i finally give up and just pay for the edition i'd been looking for
>mfw it's unbeliavably better than the one i'd almost finished
>mfw i have to start the story over from the very beginning
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what book?
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>>7515201
the iliad. read it a very long time ago so i didn't remember much of it and decided to reread it since i'd enjoyed it so much.
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What language?