What's the funniest book you've read?
Sidewalks of America by B. A. Botkin
>>24954883
>>24954824Lots of funny moments in that book. Smallweed habitually throwing a cushion at his wife's face and being almost physically unable to restrain himself from calling George a 'brimstone demon' or whatever comes to mind
>>24951462Oblomov had me laughing out loud at partsSo did Moby Dick
>>24951738Based. For me, it's The Information by Amis, Jr.
>Harry Potter's mom fell in love with the school bullyWhat did Rowling mean by this?
>>24955951I have never not one (1) time seen a zoomer shove, push, kick the shin of, punch, headlock, slap, even flick another zoomer in public. Not a SINGLE time. Its literally never happened.In millennial (ancient, legendary) times, you would see this happen all the time at the bus stops, outside the mall, by the ice cream shack in summer, the parking lot of the movie theater, and so on, etc. It was still far less common and much more strongly punished than in boomer days, but it happened among normal suburban children enough that you could recall a couple examples without much trouble.I do not believe that, outside of some literal slum in the inner city, this happens at all today.
>>24955963I'm a millennial, too. But I've seen plenty of videos of zoomers of all different races in various locations getting into school fights over the years. Probably depends on what part of the world you're in, but in America it's commonplace to hear about shit escalating and kids getting jumped, stabbed, shot, etc. You probably don't see less severe physical altercations as much anymore because most sane people are afraid of that escalation. The days where you'd fight a guy fairly and it'd stop there, and maybe you'd even end up respecting each other are gone.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBwn9wD9M6Q
>>24956030>VIDEOS ARE REALITY!Your mind is a temple in which engineered E-egregores dwell and little else.In millennial days you saw it if you were out and about. Today, you don't see it.What you do see all the time is zoomlings exaggerating and playing at the victim Olympics like >>24955951. A teacher failing a student will result in weeks of posting about the emotional trauma.
>>24954517The point was to heighten the increasing sense she wished to convey to the reader that the world of Harry Potter is morally complex and doesn't map neatly onto superficial expectations.Harry Potter is the messiah, but he's born to a bully and an enabler.He's born to a popular kid, but he himself is meek and humble.The bully was Gryffindor, and the victim was Slytherin.The boy is his bully's son, but he sacrifices his life for him anyway.Harry Potter was always about subverting the readers' expectations as often as possible. It's an extended lesson on how things can be not what they seem.
>>24955951>Lol, are you living in a gentler reality than the rest of us?Maybe, nta but there was almost zero bullying or fighting of any kind in my school growing up, and I'm a millennial.
"Chanukah" editionPrevious: >>24940898/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.
>>24955953the one about writing
>>24951364>look back on old writing >it's actually better than what I write nowLately I feel like I have had a problem of overthinking what I write. I worry too much about things that most readers won't even notice, and it makes everything I write sound artificial. The natural flow just isn't there.
>>24955998You're not supposed to take inspiration from what you read. You're only allowed to take inspiration from your interesting and adventurous real life.
>>24956082I have the same problem of overcomplicating my plots and making it more convoluted than it needs to be. In these cases, the author's voice leaks clearly through, and this is how you get overly preachy moralistic filth that seems more concerned on lecturing and nagging.It helps to reframe the act of writing by aiming for a mild form of ego-death. It's not you that writes the story. The story writes itself through you.
Is this too preachy?
The only book on psychoanalysis/yourself/everyone that /lit/ needs to read
If this intro doesn't make it for you, nothing will
I can only take so much rambling
>>24955572Could be my autism and 120iq but his prose and logic scratches my brain in a unique kind of way, almost as if it had tonality
>>24955554>"no, wait, that wasn't me."redditdropped
Are similar, on the one hand, analytical error or synthesis and on the other, the error between the conclusions of a pair of reasonings that contain equivocity, or especially, that contain a false univocity. The fragmentation of reality into several particular “possible worlds” linked to each other from the outside, under the pretense of universality, is like starting from a whole and its parts, then enlarging the whole to contain itself when a part exceeds it, whereas the whole disintegrates at every moment when it is no longer itself. Aesthetically, what is lost is everything that is not the represented formalization. Ethically, it is aesthetics and in metaphysics, everything is lost.Possessing an absolute Spirit would allow analytical truth. But for us, the seduction of the analytic will remain similar to that of the religious, the latter still being the more desirable. — Even if one admits mathematics a priori, concepts need a posteriori object in order to be true - objects that are contingent to the point of being absolutely fortuitous - for is indeterminate what is possible false. Analytics have lost on their own ground.
bump
Sounds like skill issue
>>24954265Yes, anyone who has studied the Greeks and the idealists can see through the analytics like they’re made of glass. You hit the nail on the head in the second paragraph. External reflection. Some of them proudly align themselves with Protagoras. Like the animulculae in Lucretius it makes you laugh until you weep. It’s not an academic game either, the content of this mode of philosophizing is the world we live in, what Fichte called sarcastically the age of common sense.
>>24954265You would have received more replies with better writing.
What's your reading plans for 2026?Suggest a book to read in 2026 collectively. I'll add dubs (Jan to Sep, 11 to 99) and trips (Oct to Dec, 111 to 333) to the chart.
Tom's Crossing
>>24953912>>24954861I saw someone post a Henry James flowchart the other day that was pretty good. The way I've read him is by reading an early or middle period novel or two and then one of the major three late novels. Next on my James reading list, besides The Golden Bowl, are What Maisie Knew, Roderick Hudson, and to start chipping away at the complete stories.
>>24955788I've only read the first 1/3 but it's pretty good. Very long-winded though.
The Manuscript Found in Saragossa
The Return of the Native
>white men, try not to ruin literature challenge Impossible
>>24955954>Nothing has changed since Defoe wrote it.That's true, including the savages of the world.
>>24955927I mean, he doesn't even know anything about protestant theology but most likely he leans toward Calvinism judging toward his beliefs in religious tolerance. The bigger issue here is that you are offended by the character being religious in a highly religious era and seeing things through a religious lens, which is totally realistic and itself is treated in a realist manner such as him being unable to answer basic questions about Christianity and panicking thinking the devil is out to get him (which is explicitly proved as silly) and feigning being a Catholic to get along when Protestants for the most part saw Papists as heathensAnyway yeah the thing about Calvinism (which is where the protestant work ethic came from) it's monergist, they reject synergy or the doctrine that human freedom works in concert with divine will. They believed that God already chose who would be saved before he created them, and that if you do works and are religious it simply signifies you are chosen. If you weren't then you wouldn't do good.
>>24955954But that isn't true since Crusoe is very troubled at the natives being ignorant of the gospel and not knowing any better but then he supposed God has a reason for it. He saves Friday by massacring his captors about to eat him. Friday is naturally extremely grateful and loves him for it, which is a natural human emotion
>>24955945The point is why Crusoe gets over his fear of the sea, since he initially thought God didn't want him on. But after the wolves he says fuck that
>>24955334who does she want to kill? white men?
If only I knew back when this was published how right he was
>>24956032Damn OP, you sure are committed to your hot takes. I haven't been here in like 8 months and this exact thread is still getting posted.
>>24956032I'll be frank with you OP I dunno how you can be smart enough to read books that dry but dumb enough to not have immediately realized that neoliberalism is fucking retarded the moment you first learned about it. Nothing about it makes practical sense, and it's only somewhat feasible during a period of near-unipolarity. The last time neoliberalism was successful was at the pinnacle of the British empire. It's honestly just theft dressed-up as economics. Globalization will outlive the neoliberal period (barring WWIII), but it will mutate into a more sustainable, realistic, and equitable form. We're in for some dark days ahead, but the long term outlook is actually quite optimistic. The waiting is always the worst part.
I actually think liberalism has been vindicated by the insanely incompetent display of the unliberal forces (putin, bolsonaro, Trump, Xi) all of them have been abject failures and their regimes are collapsing.I used to believe liberalism was done for during covid times. But since then it just seems like liberalism is the only system pragmatic enough to not shoot itself in the foot.The reason Russia, Hungary, Trumps US and China are failing is because they all are scoring own goals. They are fucking up themselves. Liberalism as a philosophy and political philosophy protects against self-owns by basically locking the nation into a bureaucratic gridlock.The irony is that the arguments against liberalism (bureaucracy, managerial class, political gridlock) are the precise reasons why it will survive and why it is superior to the other ideologies. Self-owns are the number one reasons regimes, governments and states fail throughout history.Liberalism essentially makes the government so weak that it's impossible for them to make a self-own, thus outcompeting systems with state interference that just ends up fucking shit up for themselves like Russia, Hungary, China and Trump US.Francis fukuyama doesn't realize this, but his "end of history" book was completely correct and essentially proven over the last 5 years time.
Why haven't you read the great fantasy trilogy of our generation?
>>24955992Buy an ad next time
>everything is in the glossary meta is only good if you're a good writer
>>24955992Is it really? Your generation is really sad. I've never heard of this. Tell me why I should read this?
This isn't Gormenghast
>>24956123>our generation>Titus Groan Published: 1946go to bed gramps
What does /lit/ think of Hawthorne? Most Americans have either never heard of him or hate him because they were assigned 'The Scarlet Letter' in high school and Amerikkka is an insane asylum, and its public schools are like a suicide ward. But Poe said that "we look upon [Hawthorne] as one of the few men of indisputable genius to whom our country has as yet given birth." And America's second greatest writer, Melville, was deeply respectful of Hawthorne. What does /lit/ say? Is he a great writer, or just great for an American?
>>24954318You just blow in from reddit?
he's a heck of a lot better than poe that's for sure
Here, everybody read this, if you haven't already:https://americanliterature.com/author/nathaniel-hawthorne/short-story/my-kinsman-major-molineux
Love Hawthorne, the great American Author. I recently finished his travel essays from when he worked at the liverpool consulate, they're very good, I think I prefer them to his novels. I'd also reccomend Henry James's biography of Hawthorne, it gives good insights into the mindsets of both authors.>>24954289Hawthorne is obviously condeming adulterty, if he wasn't there would be no dramatic interest. Your english teacher just got filtered.>>24954150Poe wrote an interesting review of Hwthorne where he criticizes his use of allegory and gives his criteria for proper use of allegory which is sort of interesting, He also directly compares him to Milton and talks about Paradise Lost, you should look it up.
>>24956115Borges wrote about Hawthorne, too. It's interesting that three other notable writers wrote about this one.
I had to drop this because K is just so insufferable. Was this Kafkas intention or was it just in his jewish nature to write a horrible person and act like hes the victim? I got about halfway and these were my thoughts.The story starts with K immigrating to a new country, he gives him self the title of "surveyor" (doctor&lawyer) but he shows no ability of how to actually preform that job, or any job.Upon arriving to the new town the citizens are hesitant to take him in but allow him to stay out of the goodness of their hearts, which he fully takes advantage of. The local government provides him with ample opportunity, housing (which displaces local residence)food and supplies(at the cost of the villagers) and even a new job but K. expects even more.The cuckoo, the brood parasite, the jew Unable to create anything of its own, it can only destroy the nest, the culture, the people who act its host. upon giving his own residence, he destroys that too. A violent animal incapable of assimilation.Is there a reason to keep going or is it just gona be more jewish tricks?
K in the Castle and in the Trial is probably based on Kafka's dad. If you want a more likeable protagonist, read Amerika
>>24955193i enjoyed the Trial but K in the castle has been nothing but a bitch. he deserves everything bad that happens to him. I'll give America a read too.
>>24955195K in the Trial is an asshole too, he worms his way into that woman's room and sits down on her bed and she keeps trying to get him to leave and when she finally gets him out the door, he forces a long kiss on her, and she tries to avoid him for the rest of the story but he keeps stalking her thinking she's in love with him
>>24955123Sounds interesting. Reinforces the no outsiders/strangers mantra the ancients had.
>>24955123I'd be fucking pissed too if I came all the way out to some podunk ass dutchy for a land surveyor job that turned out to have been sent out by a clerical error, and then made me supervise two of the most irritating little dickwads the count's bureaucratic machine could throw at me.
pbuh
>>24954803Touch of microcephaly.Probably also what's wrong with his fanboy
>>24954803100% Aryan genes
>>24954791he was alright
>>24954791>>24954803nigga looks like a bull terrier
>>24954791Guenon (pbuh)
There is no humiliation ritual worse than advertising your own writing.
>>24954978>>honor
>>24954982The Victorian era and its approach to governance and education. When I romanticize the era I am often rebuked with statistics of poverty rates but I think the same satistics are generally the same or worse now.
>>24955072TRVHT NVKE
>>24954896I think they were like >3400 of which audiobooks were 80%.
>>24953232When I come to power, advertisement will be considered a crime, marketing "people" will be forced to get a real job, and all will be well.
LatinFamilia Romanahttps://archive.org/details/familia-romanaaudiohttps://archive.org/details/familia-romana-and-colloquia-personarum-audio-files>>>/t/1344565exercitia latinahttps://dn721508.ca.archive.org/0/items/lingua-latina-per-se-illustrata_202506/Lingua%20Lat%C4%ABna%20per%20s%C4%93%20ill%C5%ABstr%C4%81ta/Pars%20I/Exercitia%20Lat%C4%ABna%20I.pdfcolloquia personarumhttps://dn721508.ca.archive.org/0/items/lingua-latina-per-se-illustrata_202506/Lingua%20Lat%C4%ABna%20per%20s%C4%93%20ill%C5%ABstr%C4%81ta/Pars%20I/Suppl%C4%93menta/%C3%98rberg%2C%20Colloquia%20pers%C5%8Dn%C4%81rum.pdfComment too long. Click here to view the full text.
https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNnqqvK2yDEFVdM_5wV4Od8kV2GaSo7jzhttps://youtu.be/AOcy6RHw7A8
Elements of Rhetoricby Richard Whatelyhttps://archive.org/details/elementsofrheto00whatPrinciples of general grammar. Comp. and arranged for the use of colleges and schools by Roemer, Jeanhttps://archive.org/details/principlesgener00roemgoogPrinciples of general grammar : adapted to the capacity of youth, and proper to serve as an introduction to the study of languages by Silvestre de Sacy, A. I. (Antoine Isaac)https://archive.org/details/principlesgener00sacygoog
Bump
>>24954588Trivium is just a pseud LARP marketed to midwits too dumb to notice it's just boomer-tier Reading, wRiting, aRithmetic nonsense.
How do I get into James Joyce if I'm not Irish and I got filtered by Finnegans Wake?
>>24952613>KJV>JoyceHe was Catholic
>>24953157>Pound saw the genius of FW.Errrrr what?>Nothing so far as I make out, nothing short of divine vision or a new cure for the clap can possibly be worth all the circumambient peripherization.
>>24952808all of joyce's ancestors had names like o'grady and murphy and they were catholic through and through. he was as irish as you could get.
>>24955241So he can read the Odyssey.One always starts with the Greeks.
>>24956099
