Every time I get around to actually reading some famous author, I immediately realize that 99% of what I've heard about him is meme shit from people who never actually read him. I've been reading Gibbon, I'm about halfway through volume one (of three in my edition), and despite a decade of hearing "Gibbon's thesis is that Christianity caused Rome's decline" from BOTH online retards and Classics professors, that is very obviously not his thesis. Maybe he really goes ham on Christianity once he gets to Constantine and the Christian emperors (I'm just getting there), but even if he does, the first 300 pages are a sophisticated structural account of Rome's decline, with several interrelated substructures. He's fascinating from a historiographical and intellectual-historical standpoint, because he's clearly drawing on things like Montesquieu (explicitly), French Enlightenment "philosophical history" (Voltaire, Mably), and Scottish Enlightenment sociology, and synthesizing them with late Renaissance and Early Modern methodological innovations, like Tillemont and others in the ecclesiastical history tradition. His Englishness also constantly shines through, to the point that you almost feel you're reading Burke whenever he talks about political philosophy or political economy. What is interesting about Gibbon doesn't seem to me to be anything close to "Christianity bad, Enlightenment good," although as I said I haven't gotten to the Christian emperors yet. It's that he's writing a historical account of independent but dialectically related causal nexuses. The latter are the protagonists of the narrative, not nations or individuals, judged against static a priori criteria as in Voltaire and still somewhat in Hume. Historical causation emerges on its own terms, with multiple structures interacting and causing mutations, even when Gibbon still has Enlightenment/anticlerical priors like Hume or (most schematically) Voltaire, which is a genuine advance in historical method. His coverage of Christianity FITS INTO this style of writing, it's one causal nexus among others. Now I finally understand his importance for the emergence of the field, and I find it amazing that he's roughly contemporary with the Gottingen school. Worse, whenever you actually read something like this you realize that all the "things people always mention/cite/say" are from the first 50 fucking pages of the first volume. I'm never trusting anything anyone says again. I'm only reading primary sources. I will attack anyone who tries to summarize a text or an author to me.
>>25208027I jate people even more that read the first hundred pages of a book and think they can then make an over generalization concerning the whole book which they haven’t fucking read yet!Stfu and finish reading before posting about it.
>>25208419LMAO, this was exactly what I was thinking.
Praetorian Guard were the original zogbots, the Christians were trying to build parallel powers to escape the constant cycle of faggot emperors (except Titus/Julian/Hadrian) that kept circulating, and there’s a conspicuous chunk missing in modern texts/audio where he talks about the jews. Rome collapsed for the same reasons all countries do, a delusion that an executive/legislative branch of government can coexist while completely ignoring their constituents. The Romans grew apathetic, and were more than happy to watch it all burn.
>>25210812>You have to remember that only, generously, 10% of people actually read and of that 10%, 9% only read YA slop and smut.I would wager the % of people reading classics on this board is even lower than 10%. Take a look any time a goodreads thread is made at the number of books this board reads. It's abysmal. It'll be halfway through the year and people will post showing they've read 6 books, or like 20 with half of them being YA science fiction shit.If you're someone who actually reads a lot (or just classics/philosophy) you'll quickly realize how dogshit this board is. Honestly, take any /lit/ top 100 yearly chart, and I'd guess only 1% of board users have read even half of what's on it. There's a reason why it's the same two dozen threads repeated ad nauseam anymore.
>>25210812to be fair, robinson crusoe is an extremely boring story. I had to drop it like 2/3s through out of sheer boredom. I had an old child version of the book which I read decades ago and it was much more fun due to being so much shorter and "to the point".
Sure are a lot of "fiction is bad" posts on this board lately. Lot of "Judas was actually the good guy and sacrificed more" posts too.I'm onto (You), schizophrenic.
>>25212683>t.paranoid schizophrenic
>tfw everyone begins waking up to how awful Gaddis, Gass, Pynchon, and DFW are as writers
>>25212695I'm already excited for Pynch's next novel.
>how awful DFW is as a writer Always was.
>>25212695I'm so glad you've brought your anime pic posting along with your shit takes outside Pynchon threads so now I can ignore you everywhere else as well.
What is the final verdict on this?
I expected an autistic dark scifi horror novel but instead I got a chink sperging out about the power of love of a good woman and the power of friendship
>>25212416I really enjoyed the first and second book, the second book in particular had me laughing outloud at work.The third book can be skipped as it doesn't add anything meaningful to the series, and it infact cheapens it overall by adding in a lot of nonsense that's never resolved nor elaborated on.
>>25212416Strictly for sci-fi autists, otherwise of any artistic meritJust read the prologue as if it was a novella and read about the dark forest theory on Wikipedia>>25212454Actually reading a chink talking about love and other assorted human emotions really gives credit to the bugmen allegations
I wonder what Prof. Chinaman would say about this to his sheep on YouTube. I can't believe chicom highschools let their teachers get away with turning their AP English Lit class into a whole ass YouTube conspiracy channel.
>Notes from Underground
>>25212601Remember, they aren’t rational beings, they think only with their emotions and that makes them, well, that makes them the way they are.
>>25212508You REALLY think the technologically inclined, scientifically minded German war machine couldn't possibly have conceived of or built holocoasters huh?
>>25212508That sounds kinda awesome… I wish the holocaust was real :,(
>>25212602Why would God saddle us with such dogshit, awful, narcissistic partners?
>>25212614Paradise Lost, Book IV, VIII for why he did this and IX, X for why this was wrong.
>He wrote 45 novels[2] and about 121 short stories, most of which appeared in science fiction magazines.[3] Even if I were to start now I still wouldn't finish it all before death :(
>>25209161Nah I'm perfectly content with my life. You have a stick up your ass every day of your life and are just mean-spirited to random strangers on the internet. Your mom and dad probably didn't hug you enough as a kid lol.
>>25209891we used to have :( and now its lol, the muffled crying sounds remain
ubik is peak dick ##no dick pics##
>>25210314Your post doesn't make any sense whatsoever. B^)
>>25210345Unironically. I re-read it last year and it blew me away.
I’m about 50 pages in and it’s blowing my mind. Finally a concept of god, salvation history and man that really takes the myth of creation, the fall and the incarnation, death and resurrection of Christ seriously. Very refreshing.
>>25211134what Scholastics in particular?
>>25211159So far mostly Thomas aquinas, as berdyaev is turning against aristotelianism in theology. He has the concept of the godhead in motion as he wants to introduce a tragic dynamic to gods inner life which would render the whole of salvation history intelligible.
>>25210328I'm glad finally /lit/ discovers Berdyaev. The Destiny of Man is in my opinion his best work, but all of them are worthwhile. A truly outstanding Christian thinker that deserves to be rediscovered.
>>25211159He interacts with the scholastics, mostly Aquinas, through the work of his friend Jacques Maritain. Despite being good friends they did not agree on a lot of stuff.
>>25211196such as? I know Maritain was a tried and true Thomist but explain how Berdyaev counters him. be as autistic as possible, please.
Why /lit/ hate alternate history books?
>>25208621I love this painting for some reason.
>>25208621Do they? I've seen nothing but praise for Ada
>>25211396yes they call it "genreslop" or whatever that means
>>25208621I prefer actual academic counterfactual historiographic theory more or less.
>>25208621This site hates everything.
What do you think of it?planet earthPlanet Earth, my home, my placeA capricious anomaly in the sea of spacePlanet Earth, are you justFloating by, a cloud of dustA minor globe about to bustA piece of metal bound to rustA speck of matter in a mindless voidA lonely spaceship, a large asteroidCold as a rock without a hueHeld together with a bit of glueComment too long. Click here to view the full text.
>>25211615a bit saccharine but nothing that strikes me as wholly offensive
So...he was the world's first moralfag that could write?
>>25212199There's no bigger browbeating grandstanding moralfag than Nietzsche."Don't do that!" Is the summary of every one of his pages.
>I feel people will tend toward universal love and mutual aid like fire tending upward and water downwards — it will be unpreventable in the world.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozi
>>25212484>universal love and mutual aidHas skyrocketed the number of suffering children in Africa. Feed 1 starving archaic hominid and you'll have to feed 5 in 5 years.
>>25212199Plato wasn't a "moralfag" in the modern sense. He was attempting to find the most effective way to run a state. He was an implicit consequentialist and he wasn't an ethical universalist. That puts him to Stirner than most other philosophers post-Kant
>>25212486*closer to Stirner
Books for a young aristocratic and sensible soul born in the wrong era, meant to have a life of adventures, conquests and glory and instead forced to 9-5 all days doing Excel sheets?
>>25212311>people might judge me while they pay for their gasAnon, he is 43 years old and working at a gas station, no one considers him a normal human.
>>25212328In America yeah they do. You can have any kind of bullshit job in America and be considered part of the economy and society just fine.
>>25212331 Sure, if you are under 25.
>>25210340The Three Musketeers.
>>25211256Conan was none of those things because warlord-ism is a sign of weakness and lack of stability in post-industrial global society -- not strength and glory. Ergo, OP's question should be phrased as such:>Books for a young aristocratic and sensible soul born in an era where I will inevitably get cucked-then proceed from there.
>be Amy Griffin, a nepobaby billionaire who literally does deals with Blackstone and attends the MET Gala every year>float through life doing whatever the fuck you want because you have connections>use your connections to publish a ghost written memoir called "The Tell" in 2025 via Penguin Random House, the largest publisher in the west >a memoir about how you engaged in MDMA assisted therapy and unlocked memories of a past life where you were raped >use your connections to get your shitty made up memoir about past lives on the Oprah Book Club >use your connections to promote your shitty fictitious memoir through The New York Times >then it comes to light that the whole rape story was in fact a real event that happened to one of Amy Griffin's classmates in high school back in the 1980s>then it comes to light that after not speaking to the real rape victim for decades, Amy Griffin invited Jane Doe out to coffee in 2019 and probed her for information about the rape>then in 2022, Amy Griffin hired private investigators to call Jane Doe, pretending to be agents interested in purchasing rights to her life story >they conducted several phone interviews about her life, then when the topic of buying the life rights come up, they ghosted her >use the information from these interviews to write your "memoir" about taking illegal psychedelic drugs "for therapy" and promote MDMA therapy to the public at large >then it turns out Amy Griffin has also invested in the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), which uses MDMA for therapy >so this whole book was in fact just a marketing scheme for the illegal drug therapy clinic you invested in >at no point did anyone in Penguin Random House, or the Oprah Book Club, or the New York Times ever think to fact check the MDMA memory unlocked rape memoirThis is the current state of literature. You don't hate the publishing industry enough.
>>25212403Just shut up and take the MDMA pleb, do you hate rape survivors or something? Honestly its really lame and problematic how you don't want these corporations selling meth in your community.
Some people that crossposts between this board and /x/ may be already familiar with the works of John Paolucci, but for those who aren't here's a quick summary of what Universal Line is about by the author himself:>UL is philosophical and metaphysical information which falls in the category of personal transformation. It not only gives you the biggest picture of the universe and your place in it but recommends the most practical thing to do about it – what I call commanding your universe. Though there may be references to traditions of knowledge or similarities to New Age teachings now and then, it’s not based on any of them. Its basis is your personal private confirmation of self-validating fact – more specifically, ONE thing. >Everything is your own private dream. I've been investigating everything being my private dream as one all-person, keeping my feet on solid ground by staying only with common-sense mechanical facts. You may find it refreshingly direct. >Another important point is that my materials are not meant to be brushed by with a quick read. With all the text that is thrown our way every day on the internet, it’s understandable that we brush through text. With the UL information, however, you’ll find out soon enough that careful consideration is a must. You have to slow down and put on your thinking cap. You’ll come back, again and again, to find things you didn't know were there before. Doing such is the core of your progress with UL. A secondary action for progress is your daily ten-minute command session where you go beyond study and act on what it means to be ONE All-person, which turns out to be the simplest most comfortable thing you could do.A compilled PDF with the Universal Line texts and materials can be found here: https://mega.nz/folder/ynhGVQKD#Xb0goLFuVD7HVaVfj0KrqQAny thoughts /lit/? Users enthusiastic about subjects like Subjective Idealism and Nonduality may be find the ideas attractive.
QRD? Explain like I'm 5, how to use this to get money/status/power/pussy.>inb4 this makes you realize you don't need it
>>25210878Is not a cult. >>25211472The whole thing is serious. >>25211667Actually, if you need those things or not is up to you but you can get them like that. UL is not something that can be properly summarized im afraid, but the conclusion of it and archiving things with it should bring you the capacity of really experiencing life like a dream and just deciding and commanding for things they come by themselves. Even stating that sentence would sprout a myriad of questions and maybe an kneejerk defensive response about this being impossible because x and z. The good news is that this rabbit hole start and end with the material which answers all those questions, and is up to you if is worth your time and consideration.
>>25209697Wew lad, holy melty. Man, what happened to this site? Back in the day not only /x/ but /lit/ was also more open to exploring these ideashttps://warosu.org/lit/thread/23790565#p23802780What went so wrong
There's not other topic on existence that riles up pseudo-glowies and jews on this site as much as subjective reality does. Keep up the good work people.
Okay, I've just finished writing my first novel. To which honcho do I email it to now to get it published? I've not written anything before.
>>25212003Dm me
>>25212003DM me ;)
>>25212010>>25212022I'm unfortunately being serious. What does this process look like?
publishing 15% ;)
>>25212028Look up publishers online and go directly to them with your manuscriptIf they ask you why you don't have an agent tell them that that's dinosaur boomer shit and you don't need a middleman like in the 1700's when authors had no way to get into contact with publishers from across the country or world
>>25212064Same happened to me. They always promise but rarely deliver. Over it, anyway.
>>25212064>>25212072ive fucked a couple of lesbians. it happens. also been the designated 'if im gonna fuck a guy i pick you," which was charming. being charming and considerate lover, the sex was weird because i think they just wanted to be ravaged, which wasnt my thing at the time.
>>25212064>>25212072ive fucked a few lesbians. at the time i was a gentle and considerate lover. i think they wanted to be ravaged, so the sex was weird. wasnt my thing at the time. kinda my thing now tho.
testing
>>25212087Post so based it had to be posted twice. Based.
I'm about to read Neruda's autobiography. What am I in for, /lit/?
