I picked up Marco Polo in my search for inspiration, but it's actually incredibly boring besides the few mystical anecdotes about Eastern Christianity, and the passages in the beginning influenced by Rustichello's Arthurian background. Where did this book earn its reputation as a classic?
>>25628018Why did you think it was going to be inspiring? It's a travelogue after all, albeit a unique one.
Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu2007A critically acclaimed, comprehensive biography by a master historical writer who retraced Polo's steps across Venice, the Middle East, Mongolia, and ChinaBlends history, biography, and Bergreen's own travels along Polo's route in China and Mongolia to separate verified history from centuries of myth and embellishment.By Laurence Bergreen (Harvard Class of '72) >has written acclaimed, best-selling biographies of major historical figures (Columbus, Magellan, Capone, etc), blending meticulous primary-source research with a fast-paced storytelling style.
OP is a faggot
Are you guys participating in any book clubs? I'm in 2 different ones, one online and one IRL. The online one is infuriating because it's ran by a bunch of autistic completionist boardgame geeks. Like a clock we pick a new book once a month but these retards are always like 4 books behind schedule because they refuse to skip a book and simultaneously hate all picks that are not Dungeon Crawler Carl. There are many attempts to schedule discussion but they always fail. Me and another participant meet up once a month to discuss the chosen book, in secret.
>>25631346In a vacuum, sure.
>>25631334For MFAs (people who got their Masters in Fine Arts), look up your local poetry clubs. Pretty much everyone there is an MFA and network with them and the book clubs they tell you that they frequent or suggest a book and invite those who want to discuss it over. Or meet them out in public if your place is too shameful for guests
>>25631129If I didn't have the life odious daily burdens that prevent me from doing anything social at all I would run one called B Team Book Club where we read the second most famous books by literary authors and that's it. I'm pretty sure it would just be smellies, church retards and olds for the month and a half it lasts, or else some picayune asshole like me would try to take it over so he could make people read those Mazalan books and other genre horse shit, and I would get tried of it immediately after that. I am never the less somewhat ecoraged by the cooze supply in your picture. Do they only show up for meme girl stuff? Are they convertable?
>>25631248Your little city park, Stadsparken, has lots of nice spotsSee these royal Baroque-style milestones carved by stonecutter Sven Jonsson between 1672 and 1676?That's when John Milton wrote his masterpiece Paradise Lost, and the setting is good for reading its sweeping meditations on mortality, fallen majesty, the fall of humanity, the unavoidable end of mortal life, fate, despair, the passage of eternal time, monumental loss ("Dark'n'd so, yet shon / Above them all th' Arch-Angel ruind")>Reading John Milton’s Paradise Lost in front of an old, weathered Baroque-style milestone pairs perfectly with the poem's aesthetic>The Baroque Aesthetic of Grandeur: Milton’s poetic style is fundamentally Baroque. He employs a vast, ornate, and complex architectural structure in his blank verse, mirroring the dramatic scale, heavy ornamentation, and intense emotional theatricality found in 17th-century Baroque art and architecture.>A milestone marks progress, distance, and the passage of time on a physical path. Paradise Lost is entirely structured around epic journeys: (They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow, )>A Marker of Free Will: In a theological sense, a milestone represents a point of decision-making on a road. This mirrors Milton's core exploration of free will, choice, and the consequences of the paths we choose to follow or abandon.
>>25631263>>25631322>>25631460I can see it before me.>be anon, trying to start a book club>a book club, an activity almost exclusively joined by women>Sup whores! >We meet up at this heavily forested area away from trafficked roads to read Milton's Paradise Lost>Obviously at dusk, for the atmosphere>What do you mean rapist?
Plato Was Right About Everything
>>25629318I don't think the teaching of the Republic is that perfect Justice "doesn't exist," but that perfect civic Justice is deeply implausible, and one has to settle for ordering one's own soul justly. To the extent that the city in speech is not intended to be a real practicably actionable notion, and to the extent that the Justice of the city turns out to be a phantom of the true Justice of the soul, I would otherwise agree with you, but not without those qualifications.
>>25629330How about you fucking read it and understand that justice is defined as "all people doing exactly their role and no more or less" and the thought experiment is about constructing a city based on that principle. It is inherently unthinkable and all things detailed in the republic are extreme ends to what can be feasible under justice.>>25629348Exactly. I just get fed up hearing idiots claim it's supposed to be what we should strive toward instead of explaining what justicd can give us.
>>25631049I have read it but>it's unthinkable to have land be split up into hyper specific measurements, only perfect justice could achieve this and perfect justice is impossible!...huh?
>>25621951>>25629330>>25631340Nta, but I'd be curious where you're getting this from in the Republic; isn't this the Laws where distribution is discussed concretely? The Republic, I thought, just alludes to distribution without further elaboration, and in fact says the two upper classes don't get any allotted to them because they're not allowed to own anything.
>>25631501>>25631340Nvm, you were probably talking about the Laws in the first place, and the other anon thought you were talking about the Republic.
They are literally me.
books for this purpose?
>>25629694that's a good question
>>25629514I read this specifically for that purpose and all it told me was "just b urself"
>>25629514Rumi's Masnavi
This nigga could incinerate every one of you faggots in a few sentences.
>>25628590>incineratekek. Had he praised your writing, even
>>25628590Looks like a looxmaxxed pajeet from Bihar
>>25628590Who's this fruit? He's pretty.
>>25628590>loses a fight with T.E. Hulme>Hulme dies in the war while Wyndam survives with an illustrious career
>>25630759lewis was retarded on most issues. he accused ulysses of the most bland and inept criticism, just showing off, which is pathetic for someone who's supposed to be a literary expert
>Judith gone even further than that—into that transition stage between childhood and womanhood where she was even more inaccessible to the grandfather of whom she had seen but little during her life and probably cared less anyway—that state where, though still visible, young girls appear as though seen through glass and where even the voice cannot reach them; where they exist (this the hoyden who could—and did—outrun and outclimb, and ride and fight both with and beside her brother) in a pearly lambence without shadows and themselves partaking of it; in nebulous suspension held, strange and unpredictable, even their very shapes fluid and delicate and without substance; not in themselves floating and seeking but merely waiting, parasitic and potent and serene, drawing to themselves without effort the post-genitive upon and about which to shape, flow into back, breast, bosom, flank, thigh.
>>25630458>t. Hemingway
That's some stupendously bad prose.
>>25630464go back
>>25631289Amerilard detected
>>25631300kill yourself
I was just with a guy who talked about these books for 20 minutes and reccomended them to multiple women.How are you supposed to act in a situation like that, as someone with actual taste? I nearly died of cringe, even though I don't mind the guy personally.
>>25629114So Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett are peak Reddit?
>>25614750You're supposed to kill him
>>25630283It's less that they're reddit and more that reddit is them (and Monty Python, and Joss Whedon) repeated over and over and over again until what was once clever and amusing becomes embarassing and cliche.
>>25614834meanwhile, here you are reacting to a reaction.
>>25615012Shut up faggot
I have recently obtained a MA in Philosophy, and received a relatively comprehensive vocational training alongside it. I have a decent understanding of Western philosophical narrative between presocratics to around 19th century and have the capacity to think analytically. This makes talking with other people difficult, because I often end up resolving intellectual discussions with people who do not have formal training by simply finding a premises we disagree with and mostly stopping arguing for my position from there. I've stopped giving opinions on things I am not knowledgeable about and try to resolve most questions empirically if able. This is a lot less fun than being a pseud. Please help me /lit/, how do I become a pseud? Are there any books I should pretend to read?
>>25630722Congrats pseud you're pseuding it!
>>25630857That's limited to humanities academia No one takes that trash seriouslyIt has to be something important that you're pretending to know
Find Canadians and cut your teeth conversing with them, they will teach you the sacred language of the charade.
>>25630515Pseuds are born not made.
>>25630515>How to become a pseud?Frog posting
>borrow my sister's book>it's a softcover>open it at more than a 30 degree angle>she spazzes out that i might bend the cover and crease the spineWhy are there so many book autists like this?
>>25620074I like creasing my books, it shows that they were used
>>25620074>lend my sister a book as she says she wants to have something to read for once >she returns it months later and says she only read the first pages>she only needed the book to sleep
>>25630869You're no good stalwart if you're not even a good reader, I already explained earlier. JAPAN barely got a few niggas, they need a real nigga with some Aryan DNA in him with a Jap look to lead them to Hyperborea.
>>25620083>tfw you have to lower your average concert ticket price from $750 to $700 to fill the stadium with your teenage fans
I assume she is pushed so heavily by the music industry because she is the platonic ideal of their desired future consumer race.
Do il/lit/erates here read magazine?
>>25628302Here you are, my friend, a neutral adjudicator.
>>25628141You can just do real crimes anon
>>25627915>women and gays are the only people who read or write anymoreYou don't read or write?
>>25619509He looks short
It's been a long while since I read a mag. They cost as much as a paperback book, have worse content then older mags, and are filled to the brim with ads. It just isn't worth my time or money compared to all the alternatives.
I love reading but all my time is spent addicted to internet. How do I escape when work burns me out? This seems systemic.
>>25630725At least one paragraph in between every refresh, swipe, or click
>>25630725Exercise until you can't move then your mind will be free.
what is /lit/ currently reading?
>>25629018Add an "ion" to the second to last word of your post and that is my response to you.
Was reading Waterfield's First Philosophers up to the Pythagoreans when I got sick, and that was a week ago. Looking to pick up where I left off now that I'm feeling better. Also reading through the Bible on the side. I've gotten through most of the narrative books (up to Chronicles) and now I am starting with the Psalms and such.
Still reading Without Remorse. Its got good. Really slow start, and now its turning into Death Wish: Tom Clancy edition. Really cool.
>>25620225The Eleventh Son
I was on vacation with my girlfriend when I started reading it and we visited a couple used bookstores. She asked me why mine was so much smaller than the copy in the store.
Previous: >>25510633https://warosu.org/lit/thread/25510633~Itinerary~• Friday, October 2nd, 10:00 AM GMT (or a bit earlier)>Character & theme requirements revealed—start writing!• Friday, October 16th, 11:59 PM GMT>Submission deadline. Voting and critique begin.• Friday, October 30th, 11:59 PM GMT>Voting ends and winners crowned. Critique persists with thread.~Rules~WritingComment too long. Click here to view the full text.
>>25623794Would have thought "Recursive" scored higher. Simplicity and horror went way further in my voting, like an actually good /x/ story My top 3 wound up being>Cat Lady>Recursive>Trick or Treat
>>25628957I didn't end up voting for it, but I'm also surprised it got so few, I still think it's a neat idea
>>25630025Neater than being chased by a literal skeleton with a pink dildo? Are you mad?
>>25630031I mean that's just a good Saturday night innit
>>25630514>t. sandniggerCome to the US, where even our skeletons are fatter than your average citizen.
I personally believe that Jesus was a divine being, that he truly was sent by God and was raised from the dead but I have been meditating lately on what the alternative is if I'm wrong. Pic related, The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb by Hans Holbein the Younger, is a painting that almost caused Dostoyevsky to have a seizure who said:>"One can lose his faith from a painting like that"It confronts you with the possibility that the whole story is false.My view is that if Jesus wasn't divine or empowered by God then to me the only reasonable option is that he was a harmless madman. That in a way has a certain power to it though for me. The idea that there was a lunatic who only had love in his heart and he said "Love everyone" and for that he was nailed to a cross. It's a sad and beautiful story. Maybe that's really what happened. I hope not, but I can't truly say
>>25623947Lot of advice for a 4chan user coming from, won't you believe it, another such user. Almost sounds like projecting. No, scratch that, it is projecting.
>>25623821I feel so sad for you that you're still on the level of mere "true/false" rationalism and materialism.
>>25627419>how Christian tradition generally considers Matthew to have been the first gospel Like 95% of everything in the Christian tradition it's patently false> What I wanna say is that the very first document relating the words of Christ never said anything about miracles or that Christ was GodWhile it's true that Q is sometimes theorised to be a saying gospel you are assuming so much to the point of making things up>it's perfectly acceptable that he was a very sane moral philosopher The Romans didn't crucify people for being philosophers. Crucifixion was generally reserved for slaves and insurrectionists. Jesus would not have been crucified for a moral philosophy nor would the Jewish authorities sought to have him crucified for it either. However if we believe the stories of the cleansing of the temple, claiming to be God, and calling himself King of the Jews then there are 3 ample reasons the Jews would have tried to kill, with the 3rd reason being a good reason for the Romans to have him executed>Let's also remember that the resurrection was not written in Mark in its most primitive form but was a later addition.This isn't true at all. The resurrection appearances and commissioning of the disciples was a later addition but Mark's original ending was the women appearing at the empty tomb and being told by a person who is clearly an angel that Jesus has been raised from the dead and will appear to his followers in Galilee
>>25623821>he was a harmless madman. That in a way has a certain power to it though for me. The idea that there was a lunatic who only had love in his heart and he said "Love everyone" and for that he was nailed to a cross.Or Paul just made Jesus up
>>25623821This is what christcucks do on their spare time?
