What is the absolute peak of literature? Something like the Sistine

>>8969820
Sistine Chapel is ugly, especially the Last Judgment.
I mean, I appreciate the technical skill- one half of art- that went into it, but a bunch of flatly-painted, over-muscled naked men and bulldykes isn't the peak of beauty by any means.

>>8969829
you're fucking ugly

>>8969837
I'm prettier than that sodomite's insult to Mary.

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>>8969820
Ecclesiastes
non-religious btw
or pic-related
>>8969829
ehhhhhhhh, no

>>8969820
Sisten Chapel sucks

But I get what you're getting at, and it's War and Peace. Or possibly On Women

>>8969853
>middlemarch

what specifically makes this book special?

Divine Comedy
Paradise Lost
Ulysses

>>8969866
Its dedication to empathizing with every character in a meaningful way, while keeping the overall narrative of sweeping change intact. Her clear love of people shines through unambiguously, especially when she interacts with the 'villains' in the text.
It wouldn't be some impressive if there weren't so many characters that are so deeply intertwined.

>>8969855
>Sisten Chapel sucks
go fuck yourself you contrarian faggot

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>>8969829
>>8969855
kill youre selfes

>>8969820
The Divine Comedy desu.

>>8969876
why is human interaction the nadir of literature? does she incorporate more than that?

>>8969820
Dante. Jesus Christ, the Comedy is incredible. if you've read it and haven't fallen in love, read Charles Williams' The Figure of Beatrice.

Sistine?

Oh, dear. I always thought it was Sixteen.

The individual parts of the Sistine Chapel are nice but the whole thing is kind of a clusterfuck. What book is like this?

>>8971332
War & Peace

My diary, desu.

>Sistine Chapel
>peak of visual art
>Van Gogh
>comparable to Michelangelo
>(You)
>not a pseud

>>8971345
Van Gogh is easily comparable you 'aesthete'

>>8969820
Finnegans Wake

St. Thomas' Summa

>>8969820
>Can it top or match the beauty of a Beethoven symphony, or a painting by Van Gogh
Got any specifics mister peak of art?

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>>8969829
Yeah no

>>8969967
>nadir
That word etc.

That said, music and (for some people) the visual arts are indeed more "direct," perhaps, than literature. And of course like anything it deals in large part with what moves you personally. Still, for a shorter work, perhaps I could recommend Wordsworth's Great Ode, or Yeats's Lapis Lazuli, or something like that. For a longer work, as people have said, Shakepeare's best, the Commedia, Paradife Loft, Ulysses, Finnegans Wake, Don Quijote, are all just as great and (for me personally) greater than the Sistine Chapel, and greater even than Beethoven's 9th or the Diabelli Variations. But of course there's a great difference in effect between a work that can be read in 15 minutes and a work that requires many hours to read through and thoroughly comprehend. And the grandest works are not always long.

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>>8969820

Don Quijote is the peak of literature.

>>8971580
says who

>>8972909
I says

>>8972909
i agree with >>8971580

>>8969829
t. fat ass gmo eating cunt who doesn't create but just whines

>>8971302
>Murrican education

>>8969842
I don't think il sodomo worked on the ceiling

>>8969820
The complete works of Shakespeare. I know this is a pleb opinion. But it's also right.

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>>8969837
>>8969853
>>8969883
>>8969916
>>8971411
>>8973045
>michelangelo detected
you guys are all plebs, Sistine chapel is nowhere near the prettiest church in Rome, let alone the world. its only famous because of the paintings

>>8969820
Homer
Divine Comedy
Shakespeare
Don Quijote
Goethe's Faust
Moby Dick
Dostoyevsky
Tolstoy
Ulysses
In Search of Lost Time

The sublimity of literature comes from elements very different from music and visual arts so, in practice, comparing them is impossible. Maybe you're just looking for the wrong thing in books.

>>8972909
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/may/08/humanities.books

>>8973642
what should I be looking for, then?

>>8973642
+rabelais
+virgil
-dosto
+petrarch
+ovid

>>8973277
>Baroque

>>8971416
You know what you're talking about, but please calm down with the retarded memes.

>>8974942
I don't know, I don't know how you read now anyway. I've been reading intensely for the last three years and I'm still not 100% sure what I'm supposed to look for. I just try to follow each aspect (characters, philosophy, prose etc) to the best of my ability. And I'm greatly enjoying some difficult yet highly regarded books, so I guess I'm doing something right.

It's essentially practice, I think, and trust in the canon. If you think a canon novel like Moby Dick is just boring and unenjoyable you're not reading well enough.