Archived threads in /lit/ - Literature - 727. page

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Hi /lit/. Somewhat of a newfag to literature here. Can you recommend to me a more intellectually challenging version of Kurt Vonnegut? I like his writing style, but I'd like something with a little more depth.

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What are some books for smart, sophisticated people such as myself?

I'm mostly a connoisseur of videogames and comicbooks, but I've decided to branch out to this new medium to expand my horizons.

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What did he mean by this?

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Read a book tonight!

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While I was skinny dipping in the forums of the deep web, I came across an author who wrote books on incest, bestiality, and weird ass crazy shit like it, I am disgusted by what he writes but I would like to see the history of the author himself. His name (most likely alias) was Ted Leonard. If anyone actually wants to research this for me I would be thankful.

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So im fairly young and im very intrested in human behaviour and the mind. I have been exposed to games music and movies through out my teens and they sparked the interest on human behaviour but i believe that books will let me explore the subject more. So i just think that i should not be wasting time time doing useless shit and should be expanding my culture. I have not read many books and i want to get into them so my question is what are some essential books and as previously stated i would prefer books about human behaviour but i would also like kust great books in general like lovecraftian stuff and good horror novels.

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>Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth—
>for your love is more delightful than wine.
>Pleasing is the fragrance of your perfumes;
>your name is like perfume poured out.
>No wonder the young women love you!
>Take me away with you—let us hurry!
>Let the king bring me into his chambers.

>mfw the bible tries to be sexy

why do people take this trash seriously?

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Is it possible to learn a language at an older age? I mean being fluent and somewhat eloquent with minimum flaws at drawing words out of your memory. I guess being in your twenties after a spending your tenage years drug binging and having English as your second language doesn't help much. but I'd love to hear from some of you people that tried practicing a foreign language after adolescence, was it hard? How long did it take you to get the basics? Do you still find yourselves struggling?

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Are there any books that will help me decide what I want to do with my life?

I finished grad school this past year and now I have no idea what to do. I don't want to work, I just want to read books all day t b h with you guys.

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What was the last book you gave up without finishing? Picrelated for me. It would not end

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Why was he the only writer that could describe the misery of the working class, without sounding like a condescending prick? All other socialist writers write like they're dsescribing alien beings who are hopelessly below them in intelligence. But Orwell seems to really empathize with how working class conditions affect the psyche. At the end of the day he still seems them as just normal people. And yet no other socialist writer seems to capture this quality like him.

>The basis of their diet, therefore, is white bread and margarine, corned beef, sugared tea, and potatoes — an appalling diet. Would it not be better if they spent more money on wholesome things like oranges and wholemeal bread or if they even, like the writer of the letter to the New Statesman, saved on fuel and ate their carrots raw? Yes, it would, but the point is that no ordinary human being is ever going to do such a thing. The ordinary human being would sooner starve than live on brown bread and raw carrots. And the peculiar evil is this, that the less money you have, the less inclined you feel to spend it on wholesome food. A millionaire may enjoy breakfasting off orange juice and Ryvita biscuits; an unemployed man doesn’t. Here the tendency of which I spoke at the end of the last chapter comes into play. When you are unemployed, which is to say when you are underfed, harassed, bored, and miserable, you don’t want to eat dull wholesome food. You want something a little bit ‘tasty’. There is always some cheaply pleasant thing to tempt you. Let’s have three pennorth of chips! Run out and buy us a twopenny ice-cream! Put the kettle on and we’ll all have a nice cup of tea! That is how your mind works when you are at the P.A.C. level.'

>They have all the leisure in the world; why don’t they sit down and write books? Because to write books you need not only comfort and solitude — and solitude is never easy to attain in a working-class home — you also need peace of mind. You can’t settle to anything, you can’t command the spirit of hope in which anything has got to be created, with that dull evil cloud of unemployment hanging over you.

>She looked up as the train passed, and I was almost near enough to catch her eye. She had a round pale face, the usual exhausted face of the slum girl who is twenty-five and looks forty, thanks to miscarriages and drudgery; and it wore, for the second in which I saw it, the most desolate, hopeless expression I have ever-seen. It struck me then that we are mistaken when we say that’ It isn’t the same for them as it would be for us,’ and that people bred in the slums can imagine nothing but the slums. For what I saw in her face was not the ignorant suffering of an animal. She knew well enough what was happening to her — understood as well as I did how dreadful a destiny it was to be kneeling there in the bitter cold, on the slimy stones of a slum backyard, poking a stick up a foul drain-pipe.

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I came up with a little philosophical thought experiment. I hope you enjoy it.

I personally came to a wonderful conclusion after asking myself these questions.
1. Imagine the most neutral event/thing/possibility you can.

2. Save it to memory.

3. Now reflect on it. Would you describe this neutral imagination rather as positive or negative (if you had to choose)?


Now, ask yourself the question;
If truth is without any judgment and thus completely neutral, why do I/we aspire to find it?

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Should I delete all the ["]'s and just go with [']s to sound more patrician?

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Thoughts on this lt?