/lit/ is for the discussion of literature, specifically books (fiction & non-fiction), short stories, poetry, creative writing, etc. If you want to discuss history, religion, or the humanities, go to /his/. If you want to discuss politics, go to /pol/. Philosophical discussion can go on either /lit/ or /his/, but those discussions of philosophy that take place on /lit/ should be based around specific philosophical works to which posters can refer.Check the wiki, the catalog, and the archive before asking for advice or recommendations, and please refrain from starting new threads for questions that can be answered by a search engine./lit/ is a slow board! Please take the time to read what others have written, and try to make thoughtful, well-written posts of your own. Bump replies are not necessary.Looking for books online? Check here:Guide to #bookzhttps://www.geocities.ws/prissy_90/Media/Texts/BookzHelp19kb.htmRecommended Literaturehttps://lit.trainroll.xyz/wiki/Recommended_Reading
Are you incapable of making decisions without the guidance of anonymous internet strangers? Open this thread for some recommendations.
"Meet The Author" editionPrevious: >>24227887/wg/ AUTHORS & FLASH FICTION: https://pastebin.com/ruwQj7xQRESOURCES & RECOMMENDATIONS: https://pastebin.com/nFxdiQvCPlease limit excerpts to one post.Give advice as much as you receive it to the best of your ability.Follow prompts made below and discuss written works for practice; contribute and you shall receive.If you have not performed a cursory proofread, do not expect to be treated kindly. Edit your work for spelling and grammar before posting.Violent shills, relentless shill-spammers, and grounds keeping prose, should be ignored and reported.(And maybe double-space your WIPs to allow edits if you want 'em.)Simple guides on writing:Comment too long. Click here to view the full text.
>>24238664I personally hate the "pronoun" start and not knowing the MC's name. I don't know why it's so important to hide his name if it's not in first person.
>>24238603You've been wishing for a collapse for the past decade and books have been doing nothing but increase profits and audience. The real culprit holding back books were men like yourself.
I've been daydreaming about building up a setting where it's post-apocalyptic Americans driving big consumer SUVs across dilapidated highways, kitted out with rigged weaponry, weaving through wrecked cars from long dead people trying to escape the cities and avoiding death at the hands of highway pirates. I imagine you could soup up a 1999 Chevrolet Suburban to the point where it's basically a land-barge that you can live in and mount guns onto, since all the cities broke down into cannibal nigger no-go zones, poisonous ruins and wilderness where, if your car ever stops for any reason, you'd be found by creepy post-apoc natives and disappear. There's probably a few cities left on the coast that survived the total breakdown and sabotage of American infrastructure, where foreign entities pay big money to these "highway drivers" who work for corporate handlers, all for the purposes of trying to see if there's any way to salvage the nice things America left behind. The story could follow two of these weirdos while they attempt to drive an important foreigner from Atlantic City to Cincinatti (two of the only surviving cities) and the reader explores the whole setting, which is basically a time warp to the very early 2000's with various red herring explanations for why America collapsed and what the consequences of that are.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc--a58BHcQWhat's the smartest way to build up this setting before I start designing characters and storylines in it? I really want to have an entire world made up even if the audience only sees 10% of it.
>>24239199>What's the smartest way to build up this settingIsn't this way too broad of a question?
>>24239190Are you delusional? Fifty percent of traditionally-published books sell less than one dozen copies.https://slate.com/culture/2024/04/book-sales-publishing-industry-statistics-substack-penguin-lawsuit.htmlThe publishing industry is being kept afloat by a small handful of mass-selling authors.
>There's no gay or trans characters.>No lectures on slavery or cultural appropriation.>The comedy is actually funny again.>Rick added a bratty Loli who de-ages people and gets off to itHoly shit. Has his writing finally become good again?
>>24239204Magnus Chase and Trials of Apollo are the only books that sucked before this. The rest were good. Rick just started throwing in annoying woke bullshit around 2017.
>>24239185Oh yeah because if you aren't fart huffing about the "higher themes" you're basically not reading it at all. Lit snobs are the absolute worst.
>>24239218The next logical step in understanding a deep novel is now "fart huffing". Anti-intellectuals are the absolute worst.
>>24239218>"higher themes" The quotes make sense if all you read is Harry Potter and Harry Potter clones since what you read is all there is to it. Clyde Battleboy is the chosen one and he embarrasses the bully and kisses the girl. No more thought required.
>>24239226Percy isn't a chosen one and doesn't even "Get the girl" until the last book. And there's no generic bully character in any of the books either.
Any solid Werewolf novels?
The Wolfman by Nicholas Pekearo
>>24235404
I still haven't found an audiobook of Guy Endore's werewolf novel.
>>24235404The movie is surprisingly good too.
>>24235404just play sonic unleashed recompiled
I am a deeply miserable man, my greatest sin is sloth and inaction. I am also hopeless with women. Give me lits with a strong protagonist, with nietszchean ideals, less flowery spiritual stuff and more WILL to power. I am new to reading fiction as an adult
>>24238819>just ignore the problem and treat the symptoms, bro>also it will probably give you an addiction and mess up your body
Not taking any drugs. I will rawdog life. I am grateful that i can at least feel despair. Apathy and numbness is the enemy. Pls no more drug talk thanks.
>>24239021Sometimes depression is the problem. I know it's hard to believe since so many people can get depressed or think being sad is depression, but there are genuinely depressed people in the world.
>>24238833I did one stint of antidepressants but didn't re-up on it. Regular exercise is what worked for me. Walking/running with a dog. (Blue heeler, bred to herd cattle and are inexhaustible.)
>>24239021Are you retarded? The depression IS the problems, it's not byproduct of something, depression is a disease on itself, Fucking dumb nigger thinking like a 19 century boomer "just suck it up, dude"
Merry and Pippin are carrying the Ring edition, just for a thought experiment. I know it makes no narrative sense.>How would the story go if these two had to carry the ring? >Who would be the ring-bearer, and who would be the guide? For me, it's ring-bearer Peregrin and Meriadoc the guide. Pippin has an innate resistance to domination, given he was able to withstand Sauron's gaze after looking into the Palantir. Merry would be an excellent guide, given he knows his way around forests and trails. I think he ends up being a cartographer after the events of LOTR canonically, so it only makes sense.
>>24238891That's interesting
Just bought pic related, What am I in for? Is this a good book for spring or better to hold off until fall? I generally read medieval shit in the fall.
>read greek stuff>recognise the beacons being inspired by Agamemnon>realize the 300 soldiers at Rohan is a reference to the battle of Thermopylae
>>24239011I think you have that backwards. the battle for middle-earth happened long before the Persian or Greek empires even existed.
I've gotta be honest, the Hobbit movies did not interpret Orcrist the way I always pictured it in my head. What's funnier, I suppose, is that they DID get Glamdring exactly the way I always pictured it. I always, in my head, pictured Glamdring as a a cruciform sword with blue coloration on the hilt and pommel. Exactly what the movies gave us. But in my head I pictured Orcrist looking pretty much exactly the same as Glamdring, but with red accents as opposed to blue. Basically from the time I read The Hobbit onward I pictured Orcrist and Glamdring as twin swords, with the former being red-accented and the latter being blue-accented.Looking back, there's nothing in the text that would indicate they're supposed to look like each other, I suppose, except that I think they both come from Gondolin. But the Hobbit movies went in a totally different direction with Orcrist than I had in my head. It's a very cool-looking sword, to be fair. It's just not what was in my imagination.
Why did he kys himself?
>>24238505I think people more often get through suicidality by being emphathized with than told they are pathetic and hurting the feelings of the flower petals.>>24238527Fat fuck
>>24238534and he blinks
He realized that you can't escape capitalism and then roped himself after reaching this conclusion.
He got killed by glowniggers because his acid communism book was gonna reveal plans of the distant future
>>24235836he realized even his ideal system sucks because humans are faulty. fascism is the only thing people deserve
What's the most brutal depiction of war and combat you've ever read? Preferably non fiction and from a recent (post 1900) conflict than not. I know it's one of those things where you won't really understand it until you experience it but I'm still curious what it's like.
Before I started my tour I read the diaries of my supervising officerThe things he went through would make the most jaded man weep with despairNot only was he on dinner rush, the bastards took in 4 families only 3 hours before closeThat was only a taste of the horrors he had to endure, and it steeled me for my breakfast shift
1. Whatever is prior is so in space and time. 2. Whatever is transcendent cannot be in space and time. 3. Therefore, whatever is transcendent cannot be prior. 4. The One is transcendent. 5. If the One is transcendent, then it cannot be prior. 6. If the One cannot be prior, it cannot be prior to the Many. 7. Therefore, the One is not prior to the Many.
>>24238201Well the One isn’t exactly prior, it is the unmoved mover. It is entirely outside of time. You’re just an idiot.
>>24238209Proclus disagrees with you, read the Elements of Theology. All movers are prior to that which they move.
>>24238218The unmoved mover is unmoved/ unborn/ ungenerated. Please go back to kindergarten and take a class on basic logic.
>>24238225Even if the unmoved mover is unmoved or ungenerated, as you say, if it is the source of the Many, then it is prior to them. But in that case, it is before, and the rest, after. Anything that is before is in time or space, and anything in time and space is divisible (Many). So, the notion of a One that generates the Many from outside of time and space is incoherent. If you’re seeing a contradiction there, that’s absolutely right. It’s a type of argument called a ‘reduction to absurdity,’ and you might be interested in teading more about that.
>>24239191At this point, your argument is relying on denying that there are any other senses to the word πρότερος, about which, see:https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0057:entry=pro/terosSo all your position now would amount to is denying a sense the Greeks recognized, and trying to reduce the position to senses they recognized and denied. You either have to take the sense of priority/rank on, without a sophistical sleight, or it's merely your word against them without reasons to prefer yours.
I've got a massive idea. It could be an instant classic. Meanwhile, my balls stink. Damn, my idea is just so fucking multifaceted and layered and fuck like it's future Nobel Prize winner type stuff. I get mania just thinking about it. But it's going to take years. I don't know if I'm even ready to start on it. Assuming I am being unironic (which I am) what are your thoughts? Do you think I could pull it off or do you have similar ambitions or ideas? It's gonna blow everything else before it out of the water.
>>24238718Superstition, reality, and the confluence of the supernatural and the materialistic. Anti-dogma. Pro-individual. A parapsychological meditation on everyday life and the unseen agent lurking between the end of one thought and the beginning of another. The trickster and ontology.
>>24238718>>24238725Basically, I'm aiming to induce supernatural experiences in the readers.
>>24238713what do you mean your balls stink?
>>24238713Be honest anon, are you high?
>>24238713>>24238725>the unseen agent lurking between the end of one thought and the beginning of anotherEnticing. You should lean into that part.>do you have similar ambitions or ideas?I'm working on my own brand of Christian existentialism incorporating some presocratic ideas. The main focus right now is countering rationally-induced Christian pessimism. I'll self-publish eventually
Once my book that I worked on for three years comes out on Amazon, everything will be alright.
>>24239127Holy based
>>24239127How do you infer this from the desire to be loved? Seems pretty universal. Even if it is in this instance attached to the idea of artistic success, that is just one of countless configurations of the same desire.
>>24239157They don’t desire to be loved. The comic says they don’t feel “worthy of love.” Nothing can change that mindset, it’s fixed from childhood.
I started working on mine again this week after leaving to rot on my hard drive for over a year. I'm at 80k words and probably need another 30k-40k to wrap up the story. My goal is to be done with it before the end of May, which would mark two years since I started it. Fuck, I need to get this done, bros. I have no illusions about my chances of getting this thing published, but I need something to prove that I didn't piss away my 20s.
>>24238191Literally me
>God is infinitely good>btw god can redefine good whenever he wantsok so why should i care
>>24239153If the Amalekite babies had been allowed to live they would have sought vengeance. The Lord decided the world would be better if they were dead.
>>24239167What the fuck kind of justification is that? If the kids of two parents who were raped tortured and murdered by a psychopathic serial killer decided they want revenge against the killer, then they should be killed too to stop their need for vengeance? And who's to say the Amalekite babies would seek vengeance in the first place? You don't see Armenians wanting to wipe out all Turks now in revenge for what happened 100 years ago.
>>24239167yet he doesn't nuke them and instead lets Israel fail at wiping them out and punishes them for it by dethroning Saul and having the amalekites harass them for centuries anyways
>>24239153It is up to God's discretion who he gives a second chance at redemption (which he does in many more cases in the OT than outright genocide)To draw a complete cleansing of your people you have to be so wicked for so long that there is no chance that they will redeem themselves. This usually manifested through child sacrifice to Idols and temple prostitution.God will not force redemption through compelled will on an entire people as he values leaving freedom of choice up to man. Man should also know when he is being evil because Adam ate from the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil.This also why he uses men to carry out Justice, as it is a celebration of the people who are aligned with the Good to cleanse the irredeemably wicked from existence.In the end, you can try and pass judgment on His choices, but you are wasting your time. He owns you. Every aspect of your existence is His work, and He can unmake you for any reason He deems. If you think it is unjust, too bad.
>You want nice food? You're sick of the same thing every day?>Die.
Εἰς τὴν Θησηΐδα edition>τὸ πρότερον νῆμα·>>24193459>Μέγα τὸ Ἑλληνιστί/Ῥωμαϊστί·https://mega dot nz/folder/FHdXFZ4A#mWgaKv4SeG-2Rx7iMZ6EKw>Mέγα τὸ ANE·https://mega dot nz/folder/YfsmFRxA#pz58Q6aTDkwn9Ot6G68NRg>Work in progress FAQhttps://rentry dot co/n8nrkoAll Classical languages are welcome.
you DO handwrite in a period appropriate hand, right?
>>24238967i for one am not doing it just to larp
>>24235634POST FANFIC
>>24238967ya bro just gotta find a copy of schoder in archiac ionic script no lower case letters
>>24237999Correction: I realized after posting that I had conflated two different books. The book with the answer key is called Teacher's Materials.https://hackettpublishing.com/lingua-latina-per-se-illustrata-series/lingua-latina-teacher-s-materials-and-answer-keysLatine Doceo is a different book.https://hackettpublishing.com/lingua-latina-per-se-illustrata-series/lingua-latina-latine-doceo-a-companion-for-instructorsSo you want the first one with the blue cover. I didn't want to go to bed without correcting this falsehood.
Where does /lit/ stand on the consciousness debate?
>>24238768I'd go with the 3rd substance; the "mind/consciousness/spirit" is still a mystery
>>24239155Generally, they believe that all minds are just minor subsets of Being that don’t realize it is so.
>>24238768Idealism makes the most sense and followed by that, a materialist explanation of the universe makes most sense if you disagree with the former. Cartesianism doesn’t sit well with me.
>>24238768What philosophers wrote about this? I'm a philosophy newbie.
>>24239214Cartesian duality ~ Descartes obviouslyIdealism~ Parmenides and PlatoPhysicalism~ any atheistNeutral monism~ n/a?
My dear friends in Christ, lately the enemies of the Catholic Church have started to attack the teaching of hell's eternity. Various heretics such as David Bentley Hart and his followers are promoting the impious doctrine of universal salvation and they claim this to be evident from the biblical greek terms. What is our response?
>>24239087>the ultimate good isSomething cooler than this, like creating diverse universes together while taking delight in each others' unique attributes and successes. It's great to say 'pain is so beautiful' when you're not being crushed by it. There's nothing beautiful about for example severe brain damage, disability, child abuse, chronic pain conditions, agony to the point of suicide, these aren't things that lead to improvement or some kind of happy ending, they just lead to dysfunction and pain. I mean you get so hurt you want to kill yourself to escape it but that's a sin so you just go to hell -- what's the beauty in that? It's just horrible.>some arbitrary judgementIf you believe this then you are standing contrary to Christian doctrine, where there's the final judgement of the Lamb that sends people to either heaven or hell forever.
The idea of an all-knowing, all-loving Christian style of God was disproven centuries ago, using simple logic. By my own observations, God is completely indifferent to our fate. If you're willing to be honest with yourself, those are your observations too.
>>24238946>Sin results from our desire to choose something other than the highest Good - I don't think anyone (or perhaps a very small few) would fail to choose Good if they saw it clearly. I don't think that is actually the case at all, because Good here doesn't mean what any worldling takes it to be, The Good Life™https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv1RJTHf5fk&t=1m09sRather, the Good means killing the false self that one has regarded as one's true self, and in turn, willingly loving others and God with the new self established in Jesus Christ. That is not something a mere lack of ignorance can fix.
>>24239110>If you believe this then you are standing contrary to Christian doctrine, where there's the final judgement of the Lamb that sends people to either heaven or hell forever.How does one forgive a wrong? Can I forgive someone who has wronged you on your behalf?
>>24239206Well that's one of Jesus' claims to divinity, that he actually can do this thing. Is it easier to say 'your sins are forgiven' or 'stand up and walk'. The guy stands up and walks, it's illustrating that Jesus has the authority to remove sins (forgive wrongs) and that there's a tangible result to this (Heaven).So yeah Jesus can forgive wrongs on your behalf (rather the doctrinal take is that the one primarily wronged in this exchange is God aka Jesus) and he's Jesus so if this dissatisfies you IDK you might go to hell for unforgiveness or something. Or he'll forgive you too but whatever.
