Thoughts? is it actually one of the best books ever or

>>8753471
Both.

best pretentious wank ever

>>8753474
This guy is right. Now read it.

>>8753471
Both is a good answer.

Like, imagine you make the greatest book ever. Then you edit it so it's a pain to read and has an autistic amount of references.

>>8753471

whats the best standalone edition for annotations?

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eherm.....

>>8753619
Best edition has no annotations because you're not a fucking pussy.

Seriously you're talking half the sense of wonder from the book.

>>8753625

i havent read the entirety of the western canon so theres no chance im going to understand the entirety of the references.

if the book is still navigable, i guess i can give it a shot but if primary points of the plot and character development are lost to me because of my not reading what was being referred, i feel like it would be a reading less enjoyed beyond just enjoying the lyrical prose.

>>8753624
>it's a boring trash pretends to be worth a shit episode

>>8753664
>it's a pretend Middlemarch didn't distill humanity perfectly (while managing to be optimistic overall) episode

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Ahem

>>8753625
Yes. Please subtly brag about your vast knowledge and intellect on a Newfoundlandian backgammon enthusiasts' board some more. You are very smart.

SoL anime is the continuation of Joyce's legacy.

Discuss.

>>8753688
I can't read Joyce and get everything, I'm just shitposting.

>>8753471
Like having a wank with a condom on. Couldn't finish and felt silly.

>>8753675
>it's a pretend women can write episode

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>>8753710

>>8753700
It's fun and rewarding, isn't it?

>>8753710
>it's an alt right virgin thinks /lit/ is his safe space episode.

>>8753721
Yes.

>>8753718
well i think that succinctly explains the type of person i'm dealing with here, a person who expresses themselves with spongebob memes that aren't even slightly relevant to the discussion at hand.

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>>8753732
i'm sorry i don't take lazy sexism seriously bro, but forreal, Middlemarch is a contender for best book ever written
a strong one

pretentious
prJˈtɛnʃəs/
adjective
adjective: pretentious

attempting to impress by affecting greater importance or merit than is actually possessed.

Is labelling random shit "pretentious" without elucidating why, the mark of a fake intellectual?

>>8753726
you really believe that the alt-right movement was the originator of the concept that women have far more trouble creating literature? I gotta say you're very nearsighted. Hell, wasn't George Eliot a pseudonym for that exact reason? Cmon son. Plus, my wife thinks Middlemarch sucks too.

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>>8753750
you're wife has shit taste in books too

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>>8753471
>a blue book
>good

Try reading a nice green book and getting back to me.

>>8753761
says the person who thinks Middlemarch is a "serious contender" for the greatest novel in existence. Jesus, what a pleb.

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>>8753785
haha, what would you say is a contender angry man?

>>8753785
that wasnt me

>>8753624
no

>>8753798
OP.
Moby Dick.
The Legacy of Totalitarianism in a Tundra

>>8753798
The Odyssey,
The Inferno,
Don Quixote,
Journey To The West,
Lolita,
Anna Karenina,
Crime & Punishment,
Moby Dick... to name a few

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>>8753822
haha, good choices, excepting one of course (you should actually try Middlemarch sometime, you'd like it)

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>>8753829
you posted poems in a novel conversation, sooo

>>8753843
>Middlemarch is a contender for best book ever written
>book
>is arguing on /lit/ when they don't know how to read

>>8753798
The Recognitions

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>>8753846
whoops, then some of that works. Don Quixote might be MM, The Odyssey is too old and influential to honestly compare with other works (currently I prefer the Illiad anyways)
I should read Journey to the West. So which anon are you, the one that dissed women (because he said novel) or the one that just said no? This is getting confusing.

>>8753871
it's all been the same person the whole time, actually. literally every other post than yours and OP's have been mine.

>>8753692
More SoL's need to take place in the city, like actually in the city, and not just high schools

I'm going to say something about Ulysses that is probably a bit controversial, but it's just my opinion. Any book which requires a college course to fully understand isn't very good. Ulysses is, at best, an exercise in pretension and over indulgence, and at worst an elitist text enjoyed solely as a means of distinguishing the reader from others who haven't had the appropriate education to afford them a means to enjoy it.

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>>8753881
oh, okay!

>>8753677
sadwhale.jpg

>>8753625
Actually, I agree with this. I just started Ulysses and I love sitting with a laptop, pen in hand, and looking into all the references, Latin, etc. and taking notes in the margins my first time through. It forces you to be a very "active reader."

It takes forever, but I love it.

>>8753885
Random not really that well read dude here.

If you understand a fourth of Ulysses, it's sill worth it.

>>8753885
I read it without any training whatsoever and I got a shitload of enjoyment from it. Do you think you get every reference from the books you read, even though you haven't gone through college courses to understand them? The key is pleasure, obviously. To hell with "understanding".

>>8753884
Lots do you newfag. Lots take place in towns too and some take place in a room almost exclusively (and there's probably one that is exclusively in a room that I don't just know of.) Highschools just work really well as a microcosm.

Joshiraku is an adaptation of a manga Kumeta wrote. He's notoriously nationalistic and the adaptation feels like an excuse to animate their travels through Japan, so it's the author expressing what he loves and hates about Japan through 5 young female (traditional) comedians.
The comedy direction is stylistically tangential and is generally very organic. The scenes that aren't them exploring Japan take place in the backroom of the theatre and is generally a lot easier to follow because the comedy isn't "too japanese for the Japanese" as I've seen it put before.

This just bleeds visual Joyce.

>>8753885

but at the very least we can subdivide literary "enjoyment" into two categories from your post: an enjoyment from the text as pleasure and an enjoyment from the text as the result of work.

i dont feel like the two enjoyments have to be experienced in isolation. there are some works, perhaps ulysses being one of them, where some of the enjoyment comes in the undertaking, where the references becoming known and seeing how the referenced develop into the story being read are necessary to experience the story as it was written, to bridge the connection between reader and writer.

i dont think all works should be read like this, but some should. this is coming from someone who never read ulysses but experiences this regularly with philosophy.

>>8753471
it's the bible of babylon

"Pretentious" is not a worthy criticism you pettybourgois fucks

>>8753885
I think at the time he was writing, the notion of a classical education still existed and his likely market could be reasonably expected to get it.

>>8753677
>reading the whale book
>ever

>>8753471
it is the first hypertext. the most perfect book yet written...paragraph for paragraph, sentence for sentence, word for word.

what's most interesting about ulysses isn't what's written on the page but the subtexts and multiple stories taking place below.

don't believe me? listen to Delaney's podcast. Ulysses is a book to be read over and over again.

Nothing has come close except for possibly...Hamlet.

IMHO

It sucks.

>>8753768
black > red > blue > white > green > pink