Favorite book

>>8468572
the stain-glass windows in my Gothic cathedral.
I'm illiterate and had to dictate this post to my little brother. As a neo-feudalist I am wholly comitted to my serfdom.

The Martian. Incredibly funny and science.

http://m.imgur.com/a/qCs9g

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I read it every few years. As I grow up, the book grows up with me. I loved it as a kid and up to this day - everytime I read it, I find something new. And I always find myself crying on the last chapter.

>>8468572
The Woman in White.

>>8468587
patrician

>>8468572
Naked Lunch, The Recognitions, or Witz

Moviegoer

Iliad.

>>8468754
I'm still surprised at how often this is mentioned as a favorite book on /lit/, pretty humbling

>>8468754
Why? It is some of the first known literature, you really don't think there was ever anything better after it, as humanity developed? Just asking

>>8468572
moby dick

>>8468870
>having a favorite means you think its also the best

get out

The Sirens of Titan

The Myth of Sisyphus

>>8468915
Well that's why I was asking, calm down man, I wonder if it's just a favorite or both and if it is, why, allso I meant better from his subjective point of view. God, you must be unpleasant to hang around.

>>8468572
The Sun Also Rises

>/lit/
>reading
lick one

>>8469798
>licking /lit/
>tongue papercuts
tough call, i'll get back to you

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>>8468579
>tfw unironic imgur coments

eeeee eee eeee

V.

>>8468572
L'Education sentimentale (Flaubert)
L'Idiot (Dostoievski)
La Contrebasse (Suskind)

The Riverdale Shakespeare
The Divine Comedy
The King James Bible
The Iliad and The Odyssey
Lolita
The Alice books

Phaedo

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For sheer comfy, I head to Baker St. by gaslight.

>>8470046

Have you read even a single book in your life that wasn't on some list?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middlebrow

>>8470046
everybody can see through this. Just know that. Everyone can see through you.

>>8468857

The best part of all is none of them have ever read it in Greek. This is the extremity of ostentatious middlebrow plebeity, to cite as your favorite author a poem written in a language you don't even read.

"We highbrows read what we like and do what we like and praise what we like. We also know what we dislike .... I dislike bound volumes of the classics behind plate glass." - Virginia Woolf

the holy bible. not even christian; it's just a great work of literature that was extremely influential to western culture and civilization.

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I just wish I could find more novels written in this style of prose. Not referring to McCarthy's arbitrary punctuation though.

Most works of fiction are too difficult for me to stomach. The authors use way too much purple prose, come off as incredibly pseudointellectual and egotistical, have incredibly excrescent ways of wording things, or they inject some retarded political or social bias all throughout the novel.

I'm not reading your novel to be wooed by your mastery over uncommon English adjectives. Get to the fucking point.

>>8470196
Is it not possible that he has read many books that aren't well known but always comes back to those because he enjoys them the most?

>>8470237
>I'm not reading your novel to be wooed by your mastery over uncommon English adjectives
>excrescent

>>8468572
the count of monte cristo
for short stories, the complete stories of flannery o'connor

>>8470237
>>8470254
And you didn't even use it right. Come on man, get that damn log out of your eye.

>>8470229
>We

>>8470254
>>8470259

Someone got triggered.

Read whatever shit you want. I wasn't criticizing anyone else's preferences. I just don't care for most fiction for reasons stated. If you wanted to be constructive, maybe you could actually recommend something instead of bitching about my post.

>>8470229
This is the zenith of pretentious snobbery.

You've failed to understand something quite obvious - a translation of a great work can still move a person's heart more than any work they've previously read.

I am not the person to whom you replied originally, but I'll say this in his/her defense - I am fluent in Japanese, but what inspired me to attain fluency were the translations of great literary and poetic works from Japanese into English, which stirred something in me I hadn't encountered in Western literature.

A translation can still be beautiful and deeply moving. A person reading a work in it's original language can still fail to grasp its meaning, and a person studying a translation can still appreciate its magnificence.

Shame on you, for presuming to spit upon a man for bearing his soul. You may consider yourself "highbrow," but I consider you an ill-mannered, bourgeois fool.

Catcher, because I'm a misunderstood crybaby

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Moby Dick.

>>8468572
The Republic
Call of the Wild
Swann's Way

Anabasis
The Cartoon History of the World III
Anna Karenina
The King Must Die
The Journey to the West
Idylls
Daphnis and Chloe
I, Claudius
Claudius the God
Pliny the Younger's Letters
The Great Gatsby
Augustus
Willie Master's Lonesome Wife

>>8468572
The Phone Book.
I like to flip trough it, pick a name at random and imagine how their life is like.

Definitely The Iliad

>>8470420

Nice post, man

>>8470472
i like this if i ever write a short story itll be like this metaphysical thanks

>>8470760
*but metaphysical

haha sorry

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Dalloway

>>8470472
I did that when I was a kid, now the phone book has dissappeared from our home.

Whatever I read last.

I don't have the ability to accurately recall anything further back than that last book. All books before that are blurred together, a great seamless creature of ideas and philosophies and the odd character remarkable enough that I remember their name. There was this one book with someone named Aaron in it. I'm buggered if I know what it was, though.

So I'll tell you Pet Semetary, but only because it was the most recent. Not because it was the most meaningful. Just because the edges are still clear.

In a couple of books, it will have joined the mass in my mind as a little piece of twisted and dark that will occasionally skitter across my conscious mind, but can not be recalled at will.

I should probably change my meds or something.

>>8468572
Mysteries - Knut Hamsun

>>8471701
Good pick.

>>8469816
>but he's on mars

>>8472301
I would, but it's not the 90s anymore.

>>8468870
>humanity developing
What does that even mean

>>8468870
>implying humanity developed

>>8472964
>>8472953
i don't know, i'm not a native speaker. you know what i was trying to say.

unending holiday by duncan firscher wellson

One Hundred Years of Solitude

or nostalgia-wise, The Never-Ending Story.

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Molloy

Maldoror, probably.

>>8473046
good album senpai was just listening to it

>>8468572
just finished Siddartha
so that

>>8473989
hah, yeah it's good

>>8468962
>better from his subjective point of view
Not the same anon but I believe that even though there's books that may be better in prose, plot or greater in every sence, your favorite doesn't necessarily have to be the best. Just my two cents

>>8468572
I don't really feel comfortable with picking an "absolute favorite" but going off of how I'm feeling at the moment, I'd say "One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest".

It might just be the only book that was literally so vivid I could thoroughly picture every little aspect in my mind and I probably haven't been so attached to characters in a book as I was with OFOTKN.

It might be that the book takes place in my neck of the woods.

I legit almost cried when that bitch nurse lobotomized Murphy.

>>8470229
>0420
>>>8468857
hahahahahahha, I suppose you're included in this patrician club with Virginia fucking Woolf?

>>8470420
this is the sort of post that gives me faith in 4chan

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>Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
Got me right in the feelerinos.

>>8470420
>>8474940

>bearing his soul
>bearing

>bourgeois fool

>>8469997

But Dostoiyevski wasn't french, mon cher

>>8470420
>>but what inspired me to attain fluency were the translations of great literary and poetic works from Japanese into English

What are some must-read Japanese works?

>>8474952
Seconded.

>>8474954
He just likes to pretend he's patrician, so he says the title in French.

I know I'm gonna be called out as a "pleb" for saying this, but it's a toss-up between The Lord of the Rings and On the Road. The Battle of the Pellenor Fields and the death of Thèoden King, those images, will stick with me forever.

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Are there more books like this
I mean the
medieval theme and the traveling more than the homo story

>>8474954
>>8474975

I know, but I'm french so I scribed it like in the traduction

the Illuminatus! Trilogy

>>8470763
There is nothing internet-related that I love more than seeing people on /lit/ use haha casually. It's very soothing.
On Facebook, either hahahahhas or emojos are used, only. The same thing on Twitter and What'sApp, except there's more capslock involved. Whenever I see a haha online I assume it's a bot, but sometimes posts sound sincere and it's slightly soothing.

>>8475144
The structure is quite German - try both of Goethe's Wilhelm Meister

You can also try Le Grand Meaulnes

>>8468572

East of Eden, The Iliad.

I thought the Fagles translation of the Iliad was incredibly enjoyable. The Iliad is just an incredibly well put together story, I had read the Odyssey years ago and was always told there wasn't much point in going back to the Iliad, but now, by far, I prefer it. The Odyssey just seems so loosely told and disorganized.

I think East of Eden shares a commonality in that The Grapes of Wrath isn't quite as tightly wound despite being the much shorter work.

But I like long works in general.

Journey to the End of the Night.

The first book I ever read, really got engrossed in, was The Stranger. But that was back in high school when I was trying to find the kind of books that interested me.

Now it'd be Dubliners because the hopelessness of those characters and their situations is something I can relate to, being a young person. Also, how can you deny the most powerful short story ever, The Dead.
>>8468587
This, too, is one of my favorites. The last story is beautiful. Unfortunately I never did read it as a child, though I still read my old Peanuts and Calvin and Hobbes collections from that time.

>>8474943
just read siddhartha and loved it. is Steppenwolf written in similar prose? Going to pick it up at the library tomorrow

>>8469795
Same, nice!

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>>8477947
Personally, I enjoyed Steppenwolf more than Siddhartha. It was more relatable as he kept Harry's past life without too many details and left his future unknown, whereas he starts Siddhartha off from his youth and immediately paints him as some sort of prodigy that was always destined for greatness, or enlightenment, in this case.

either this>>8476031 , the first of the Simmons Hyperion Cantos (pleb tier but what can I say) or The Leopard.