I want to get into some better literature. Read some of the staples. What should I read next?
>The recognitions
>Blood meridian
>J R
>This side of paradise
Do I need to read anything before J R or blood meridian to get/enjoy them?
>>8860662
Is Catch-22 any good?
>>8860681
It's fucking brilliant and hilarious.
>>8860662
Blood Meridian is by far my favorite novel. You should read that next.
>>8860687
literally the most repetitive book I've ever read
>>8860681
Yeah its great. Funny and depressing at the same time
>>8860691
Well obviously my opinion, like yours, is completely subjective.
Has anyone read Proust? In search of lost time looks terribly long
>>8860702
like my dicklol
>>8860702
The first volume was incredibly slow, don't know yet about the rest.
>>8860704
huh
>>8860711
shut up
>>8860714
you all right man?
>>8860715
yeah, how about you? stupid
>>8860662
Is that what you call better literature? How about some ground breaking classics?
wow what a great thread sure am glad that I can always come to /lit/ to see intelligent discussion of books by people who have read said books.
>>8860719
suggest them im all ears
>>8860720lol_
>>8860720
Listen son, I was born was a perfect knowledge of the western canon. At the very moment I was conceived, I became fluent in thirty different languages, extrapolating them from a single English sentence vibrating through my mother's torso. As a little Zygote I willed my mother into putting a set of headphones around her belly, through which thousands of audio-books were played simultaneously at a minimum of 10x speed. By the second trimester I had already experienced three existential crises, the last having the profundity and depth of a middle-aged philosopher. My third trimester was primarily devoted to solving ethics, physics and p=np. I will be publishing these finished solutions later this year. Finnegans wake? Haha. More like Finnegans Piece of Cake
C É L I N E
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>>8860723
Well you have plenty of classics to read my man. Iliad and Odyssey, Quijote, Shakespeare (lots of options here), Goethe's Faust, Crime and Punishment, War and Peace, Les Misérables, The Red and the Black and so on.
My humble advice is that you read your classics and form a solid base to enjoy future reading even more. Timeless works are timeless for a reason, no matter what a bunch of 19yo boys may think. Have fun reading whatever book catches your eye, but make sure to build above something if you're serious about reading.
Also try to read nonfiction so you have context to work with. On the Origin of Species, Republic and The Bible (neither nonfiction nor fiction) being prime examples.
>>8860775
I've read don quixote, some shakespeare and crime and punishment
you didn't say anything about the books i mentioned though in the OP
>>8860662
Moby Dick
>>8860780
If you really want to read one of those four, go for The Recognitions. Great boom although I haven't read This Side of Paradise. I didn't enjoy Blood Meridian. Found it rather flat. J R is great but I still prefer The Recognitions.
None of them require any previous reading and hardly any literature does. That's a requirement for philosophy. You can read on the events that serve as a historical background when there's one but that's it. If you want to catch more references, build the base I was talking about.
>>8860795
Thanks. You are the backbone of the board
And for philosophy can i directly begin Plato's Complete Works? The chart is too long ( i will read iliad and odyssey before it though)
>>8860801
Another anon here. It's a bad idea, because Plato outright critiqued the ideas of many pre-Socratics, and you won't know what's going on if you haven't read them.
>>8860801
Plato is, in my opinion, the best introduction to philosophy. He was a great artist and a lot of his worms are accessible. I suggest you approach him from the classic Apology > Crito > Phaedo. They're engaging and dynamic. Just make sure you have a good annotated edition with notes and essays. Sadly I can't be of much help here since I read my Greeks and Latins in Spanish.
>>8860813
When reading philosophy alone, that is not in an university environmental, it's best to read the presocratics in retrospective.