american literature

>>9639330
most people in the world are quite aware of american culture and values

>>9639355
yeah but i want to get deeper into it, like i want to be able to relate to everything. you know, just stronger sense of american culture. that can help me understand people better.

>>9639330
You have to go back.

>>9639372
come on, not this shit again. not in my thread.

>>9639361
Freedom by Franzen

>>9639330
>american
>culture
pick one

>>9639330

Where did you immigrate from? I may or may not be able to recommend [ethnicity]/American books.

Anyway, essential American novels that will help you understand the people better (DFW and Pynchon may or may not be geniuses but they aren't going to help an immigrant understand American culture):

The Scarlet Letter (1850)
Moby-Dick (1851)
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)
The Jungle (1906)
The Great Gatsby (1925)
A Farewell to Arms (1929)
The Sound and the Fury (1929)
Gone with the Wind (1936)
The Grapes of Wrath (1939)
The Catcher in the Rye (1951)
Invisible Man (1952)
To Kill a Mockingbird (1960)
Beloved (1987)

start with Emerson

shit chart btw

>>9639393
This. Basically, the average high school lit curriculum is all you need. Needs some Whitman too.

>>9639393
actually i haven't, but am planning to. still saving for money and finishing uni here, in Indonesia.

and thank you so much

>>9639400
Also read:

Holy Bible
United States Declaration of Independence
United States Constitution

>>9639393
>but they aren't going to help an immigrant understand American culture
Why not, faggot?

>>9639330
my american diary desu

>>9639402
Yeah honestly either of those would show you more about modern American culture than Gone with the Wind, a bad romance about a dead culture

>>9639400
>Indonesia
Please stay where you are. This country is not your country. I know you've been mistakenly told that it is, but it is not. You have a country, and you should stay there.

>>9639419
for all you know i could be starting a business there and employ hundreds of neets including you.

an immigrant having a great passion to assimilate is still not enough for you ?

>>9639436
Our nation is not a free trade zone. There's a reason why no one wants to move to Indonesia and why millions of Indonesians like you want to escape it.

>>9639448
because australia is full?

>>9639330
>>9639330
>so let's say i'm a first generation immigrant,
Run back over the border, Juan.

>>9639448
actually you rarely see indonesians everywhere in the world. unlike chinese, most indonesians don't aspire to move out, their cultural attachment is very strong.

except me.

>noone mentioned Leaves of Grass yet
You fucking faggots don't even know your own culture

Better off just watching hours on hours of television and youtube content

>>9639459

See >>9639396

homo

>>9639473
Fuck, sorry

>>9639393
updated for patricians:
>Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God (1741)
>Letters from an American Farmer (1782)
>The Federalist Papers (1788)
>Thanatopsis (1811)
>Irving's Sketch Book (1820)
>Democracy in America (1840)
>Major works of Emerson
>Major works of Poe
>Major works of Hawthorne
>Moby-Dick (1854)
>Walden (1854)
>Major works of Dickinson
>Leaves of Grass (1867)
>Huck Finn (1885)
>Major works of Henry James
>Sister Carrie (1900)
>The Souls of Black Folk (1903)
>The House of Mirth (1905)
>Winesburg, Ohio (1919)
>The Age of Innocence (1920)
>The Making of Americans (1925)
>An American Tragedy (1925)
>The Sun Also Rises (1926)
>Major works of Frost
>Major Works of Eliot
>Major works of Faulkner
>The Bridge (1930)
>Miss Lonelyhearts (1933)
>USA (1936)
>Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)
>Our Town (1938)
>The Day of the Locust (1939)
>The Grapes of Wrath (1939)
>A Streetcar Named Desire (1947)
>The Naked and the Dead (1948)
>Death of a Salesman (1949)
>Invisible Man (1952)
>Wise Blood (1952)
>The Crucible (1953)
>Augie March (1953)
>The Recognitions (1955)
>Lolita (1955)
>Major works of the Beats
>Rabbit, Run (1960)
>The Sot-Weed Factor (1960)
>Catch-22 (1961)
>Herzog (1964)
>Genoa (1965)
>In the Heart of the Heart of the Country (1968)
>Gravity's Rainbow (1972)
>JR (1975)
>The Public Burning (1977)
>What We Talk About...(1981)
>Darconville's Cat (1981)
>Blood Meridian (1985)
>Libra (1986)
>Underworld (1997)
>Mason and Dixon (1997)
>American Pastoral (1997)

>>9639453
Indonesians are poor and have low IQs, that's why. Third worlders like yourself come to rent seek off our institutions because your people cannot build institutions of our caliber in your own nations, but the more of you that come, the more our institutions and nations come to resemble your own. I'm sorry you were told by our traitorous leaders that our nations are your nations, but they aren't, so please stay where you are.

>>9639396
Kerouac and Ginsberg too, desu

>>9639476
too many literally whos worthless shit

>>9639477
i am not poor and not low IQ. i come in purely because i can relate to american culture far more than my own culture because i rarely socialize here. i'm politically right, so i'm opposed to the idea of leeching through welfare, i'm /pol/brew. if i'm not gonna be a burden to the society then why not letting me in ?

in fact, the successful leaders told that i can come. but you, a neet civilian, told otherwise. why should i listen to you btw ? give me a reason

>>9639486
Because fuck off, we are full.
>successful leaders told me that I can come
fuck off with work visas you leech. Every job and position you take is a job and position away from actual American.

>>9639489
>we are full
No you're not
And you do know you're an immigrant too right?

>>9639481
do you even read, bud? if you're not an american you have some excuse but otherwise kys

>>9639499
>/lit/
>reading
pick one

>>9639500
i'll pick both of those digits

>>9639486
It doesn't matter if you are above the Indonesian average in intelligence, your spawn will regress to the mean and hate you for being a rootless social chameleon, disconnecting them from their heritage, and raising them in an alien environment. And then we'll have to deal with them and, once we get this situation under control, send them back to the shithole their father escaped from. Your country is over there, stay there.

>>9639502
what heritage ? it doesn't matter anymore nowadays. that's why i want to dig deeper into american literature and culture. so that i can teach them american values and not confuse them with indonesia culture because i would have left it behind anyway.

>>9639507
There's no such thing as "American values." American values are European values, and you aren't European; you are Indonesian, stay in Indonesia.

>>9639507
>Heritage doesn't matter anymore.
Fuck off. Go to Europe, you sound perfect for Germany or France.

>>9639520
kek, any european country is going to have more "heritage" than the united states

>>9639518
there is, you nonamerican. europe is socialist, how can you even..

>>9639520
to me, it doesn't matter. my race is probably equal to rats anyway, right ? nothing's valuable from us. but i'm making myself, as an individual, valuable and meaningful. the fact is that right now i'm having an ideology that my race shouldn't have, what, should i downgrade myself ? i don't want to. i like being great and always evolving. i'll read more challenging books and workout.

>>9639523
Except there is no French Culture according to Macron and the fact that West Europe is actively seeking to destroy their own HERITAGE, future and past, and culture.

>>9639529
>Macron said
you've clearly never been to Europe and rely on dubious sources for your information thereof

>>9639520
and no, i'm not interested in Europe. why do you think i only want first world country ? i don't care if denmark looks 10 times better than america, i just feel attached to american culture. i'm not interested in any european culture/country, i don't want to live there, i would feel really lonely because i don't feel attached to the environment.

look at NYC, it's dirty and smelly but fuck, the atmosphere and aesthetic always makes me shiver. i belong there, i want to be reunited with my lost soul

>>9639530
I pointed out the statement of French president as a future road for the Europe and you saying fuck heritage is in direct agreement with Macron.

You can now go there with your spiritual fellows instead of coming here.

>>9639528
Europe is socialist only because it had to face the tragic postwar years. But it embraced American capitalism, not Russian communism, so your statement is pretty weak. Also, times are changing, Europe is slowly discarding its past socialist attitude.

>>9639535
Europe, slowly discarding past socialist attitude? Have you taken a look how EU works?

>>9639534
i'm not the same guy, friendo. i'm an american and judging by
>the statement of French president as a future road for the Europe
that's more than you can say

>>9639538
Of course, but there's a lot of pressure against EU politics from every major European country.

>>9639535
so what, i still feel attached to american culture and values. culture is a mix of history and geography and demography, so you can't just be like "i love my culture" and "i hate nonwhites". to me you're just another blackpilled person.

i, decide what kind of person i am. i, decide what i want to believe in. when i look in the mirror, it doesn't make me less of a western person in mind.

>>9639542
It does because you are indonesian and not american.

>>9639545
but i decide who i am, and my race doesn't stand in the way of it. i should be able to choose and decide everything. do you think i can be born as this rat race and just accept my inferiority ? nope. i'll try my best to be on par with you.

>>9639550
>I decide who I am.
No. Start with the Greeks and read about eudaimon. You do not decide who you are.

>My race doesn't stand in the way of it.
Yes it stands since its part of you, chink.

>i should be able to choose and decide everything.
World doesn't work like that because it has more than 1 person in it.

>Do you think i can be born as this rat race and just accept my inferiority ?
That's your reality. If you forget it, its just a lie you keep up for yourself.

> i'll try my best to be on par with you.
Then change your own country in your image instead of shitting up other countries.

>>9639553
>Yes it stands since its part of you
but i don't value it as much as you do yours.

>That's your reality. If you forget it, its just a lie you keep up for yourself.
no, i can be better, that's all i'm saying. i'm not stuck with inferiority, i can progress

>Then change your own country in your image instead of shitting up other countries.
why am i shitting up a country that i love ? i don't love this corrupt ass country, i'm just one person there's nothing i can do to change anything. so who cares about these people, i feel no collective/tribalistic attachment with them, i care about myself and all that 'NYC poor artist' life that i WILL pursue

>>9639561
>why am i shitting up a country that i love ?
Because you are not American and there are Americans in need before we can possibly pander to outside people who just want to fulfill their misconstrued romanticism about U.S. Every dollar you take, place you hold, space you occupy is away from American.

>>9639564
not that guy, but 'america first', not 'americans first'

>>9639566
Jan 20, 2017 - "We citizens of America are now joined in a great national effort to rebuild our country and restore its promise for all our people," Trump

>>9639564
don't worry i will probably be filling a position of an american that moved to japan.

just accept it, people just move nowadays. it's no one's planet

>>9639567
public jobs will probably not accept me, but private jobs, it's their choice, right ? if i'm accepted, i'm accepted. if i'm not, well probably i should start to learn japanese.

i'm NOT leeching off of welfare, i work for the economy too. better economy, better employment environment for everyone

>>9639571
And it will still be away from American. Fuck off.

>>9639572
nope. thankfully a traditionalist/conservative/confederate instagram account said that i can come, legally. to me, i feel like i've got the acceptance pass

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/22/us/immigrants-arent-taking-americans-jobs-new-study-finds.html?_r=0

>>9639330
> i want to strengthen my sense of american culture and moral values
You live under globalization capitalism, you already have them.

This image also shows why the left-right dichotomy is utterly retarded.

>>9639401
The Bible isn't particularly necessary outside of the New Testament and maybe Genesis because the US a high number of creationist retards, but the Declaration and Constitution are definitely required.

>>9639502
Oh boy, this meme. Can you even point to any examples of this? I've met a lot of children of immigrants and I've never heard one complain, even casually, about this "lack of roots" except, ironically, when they've been brainwashed by SJW types to think that belonging to a brown people culture is somehow more virtuous than mainstream American culture. If anything, most seem proud of having more than one cultural background to draw from. I think this is pure projection. Because you care about living in the same place your great-great-grandfather did (although if you're American, it probably doesn't go much further than that), you think everyone does.

>>9640885
>muh anecdote
>being this unaware of second generation immigrant criminality and regression to the mean

>>9640918
So you can't provide any examples? Or any evidence at all?

>>9640885
The example is the crime rate element commited by second generation immigrants fucking skyrocketing. As it always has in every nation under all of history whenever these immigrants aren't literally enslaved.

>>9639393
I'd argue that DFW says a lot more about modern American culture than any of these works here.

>>9640965
>The example is the crime rate element commited by second generation immigrants fucking skyrocketing.
How does that imply they hate their parents for disconnecting them from their heritage?

>As it always has in every nation under all of history
wew lad, that sounds like a claim that couldn't possibly be substantiated, but I'm sure that doesn't bother you.

>>9640946
No, I won't do your research for you because you are a lazy thinker who uses anecdotes to inform, comfort, and shape a fake reality. Google the terms I gave you: "second generation immigrant crime rates" and "regression to the mean" and educate yourself instead of being an emotional, other-worshipping loser who projects the virtues of his busboy acquaintance Paco II onto everyone else because he's a simple-minded virtue-signaler who can't into the long term consequences of his retarded worldview.

File: laughing james rolfe.gif (3MB, 190x200px) Image search: [Google]

3MB, 190x200px

>>9640995
Thank you for this post.

>>9639330
You have to go back