what is /lit/ currently reading?
nothing at the moment, waiting for Steppenwolf and Ulysses to be deliveredwhat about you anon?
>>25620225I was gonna read through all 1,091 e-pages of this Lovecraft collection but I've already stalled out with 15 pages left of Herbert West-Reanimator. He's really not a very good writer and his prose is really fucking BORING. I feel like I'm reading through the equivalent of what a fifteen year old sophomore thinks is REALLY DEEP and exquisite, poetic writing. It's just so fucking BORING. Might go back to Journey to the West, at least the imagery there is frequently beautiful and descriptive and the poetry actually feels kinda lofty.
Morning Glory Milking Farm
>>25620242I'm wrapping up Steppenwolf right now, planning on rereading Technological Slavery after.
I don’t know what to read. I put Dracula down after another obvious declaration from Dr. Seward about how Renfield might be involved in the Count’s machinations like it is some great revelation after it is painfully obvious to anyone reading that it is the case. It’s just a boring, repetitive book with no meat on its bones. I can accept repetition if the prose is gripping, such as Frankenstein, but it isn’t. Frankenstein also knew not to overstay its welcome. I should have never invited Dracula in. As for what I am going to start reading I’m not sure. I thumbed through some of Lewis’s The Monk since I’m still on my classic Gothic wave for October, but I did pick up The Vivisectors by Missouri Williams yesterday so I read some whilst on the toilet and now it intrigues me. It did illuminate through its first eight pages in contrast to The Monk’s first eight how shallow language feels to me nowadays. The Monk has a poem before we even start. It’s all so matter of fact with little thought put towards beauty except for some darling sentences. I may just read The Vivisectors today since I can probably breeze through it in a day because of its tuneless prose. And the author is cute, though Lewis would have made a fine eromenos.
reading this. it’s quite clever but i can’t help but feel it isn’t worth going to all that trouble for the sake of being funny once every dozen pages. i think it’s on the whole a pity he was irish. i say this loudly and clearly.
>Filtered by Dracula This place is fucking DOOMED.
>>25620282Filtered because it's mindless. It's a third rate novel.
>>25620287It's easily one of the most accessible and entertaining gothic novels known to mankind and a classic for a good reason. You're just a faggy 'lil brainlet that thinks he's special for not being able to finish fucking DRACULA.Goddammit you zoomer fucks are P A T H E T I C
>>25620294>accessible To a fault, it's brainless. >entertaining No, lol It's a mediocre book with nothing to chew on intellectually or spiritually.
>>25620225Ellul, PropagandaAlain, On HappinessNancy Milford, The Pursuit of Love
>>25620303Okay, you shared your worthless opinion. Now go jerk off to your favorite Japanese comic book and then KILL YOURSELF.
Book with stars on the cover by the author referred to here, last time I saw, as "that Brazilian bitch"
>>25620319I think liking Dracula puts you closer to the person you think I am then not liking it does, to be honest. The Count is described like a video game boss near the end (I have 70 pages left and probably won't be finishing it, that's how boring it is) that our one-note heroes must vanquish. The most interesting part of the book is unironically two women gossiping back and forth.
>>25620279It concludes wonderfully, and has been very 'influential'The cowboy stuff, the omnipresent suffering of the mythical warrior (or whatever that's supposed to be, abroad or in his tree) are brilliant, given the misleading 'Procrastination, the Novel' context. The misdirection, the intimacy and the brutishness-- very Irish.YOU should read Renata Adler's Pitch Dark
Les Miserables
>25620328This post is bait. It shan't be receiving a (You)
>>25620335I'm sorry you had to find out this way that just because something is old doesn't mean it's good. This will become more apparent as you read more
Edith Hamiltons Mythology
This anti-dracula tranny is visibly upset, kek. Scrambling to defend his shitty faggot taste.
>>25620263What did you think of Steppenwolf? The ending is very mysterious and left a strange feeling in my heart.
Im working my way through this one rn. The logic is sound, but the science is outdated. Wouldnt recommend it to anyone not interested in Evolutionary thought
>>25620225
I'm starting Master and Margerita. My French traductors note plainly states that this is kids literature in Russia. I don't know what to make of this. >>25620263>>25620402The more you get into Steppenwolf and get closer to the end, the more it feels like a fever dream. I enjoyed it, though. Notes from the Undergroud, with a "dreamy", "trippy" twist to it maybe ? That's kind of what it was to me. >>25620333Wish I had the courage to take on big boy books. I always wanted to read Hugo's Notre Dame.
>>25620483>traductorstranslator, forgive my ESL ass
>>25620483You can see a certain closeness between the French and the English because no one else communicates their thoughts so frequently in the form of insults.
I'm reading the Iliad.
>>25620545And in this respect /lit/ is fairly European.
>>25620551Which TRANSlation?
>>25620225Was reading picrel, but got kinda burned out on it halfway through, so I switched to "Brut" by Sam Tallent. Will probably go back and finish "The Tunnel" once I'm done, might also move to a collection of Borges stories my wife got me.
>>25620225Brief Interviews with Hideous MenI've hated everything I've read by DFW but this is pretty fun. It's funny and has at least relatable descriptions of mental illness and when you read it as an exercise in projection given his history it becomes more interesting
>>25620225this n that bro why u wanna know??
I'm so far behind my reading schedule I've given up. If you were to ask me how many books I read and what it was about, who the characters were and what happened... I wouldn't even be able to tell you anymore. I have to look at my Kindle to know what I've recently read.
the venerable Bede
>>25620225That, and another one not so easy to move around.
>>25620242based. which one you reading first
>The Best Poems of the English Language - Selected and with Commentary by Harold BloomLoving it so far, just got to Walt Whitman. My biggest gripe is when he expounds on a poem by an author, and then doesn't include any, or at least much, of it. I can understand not having the entirety of some poems, but I felt bamboozled when he wrote about Prometheus Unbound then didn't include a lick of it.>>>25620333>>trip 3s>nice. Is Les Mis good? I see it a lot in the chart threads. I just ordered it but have no clue about it besides a few bits I've seen from the Hugh Jackman + Geoffrey Rush movie.
>>25620332the ‘influential’ charge on literature leaves me indifferent. the biographical reminiscences make me laugh, but they’re too few and far between, and half of them aren’t long enough, the cowboys are funny, the pooka is a bore, finn is a bore. >very Irishall too swift moving and wild for a slow english intelligence to cope with. up and away like a flash of lightning on the connemara whatrenata adler - yank. i’ll think about it.
>>25620708The one where the guy hates his toilet dad is memorable. Maybe too long.
finished plato's meno and tomorrow I start the republic, reading pessoa's the book of disquiet as well
>>2562022548 laws of power
Landmark AnabasisReally good would rec
Slaughterhouse-Five :)
Finally finished this book despite its short length.Didn't really get it past it being about a vet who keeps trying to take care of a rooster.though it did end on a rather funny note given the last word
Reading growth of the soul atm I hate Oline
Started this last night. I ordered it when I reading Schattenfroh>It is 1097 and a traveller arrives in the great, walled city of Antioch with a vision of a beautiful and mysterious geometric design that will change the lives of all those who see it. Pilgermann is a mesmerising recreation of the world of the Crusades, following its unlikely hero and those he meets on a journey of picaresque horror across a Europe of hatreds, visions and a desperate wish for salvation.
>>25620897>Is Les Mis good? I see it a lot in the chart threads. I just ordered it but have no clue about itIt's a slow burn that is totally worth your while if you're interested in post-revolutionary France and Catholic grace and redemption
Life After LifeIt's a very boring book about a woman who relives her life when she dies. However, when she is reborn, she forgets everything, but has deja vu on moments she died so she unconsciously makes different choices.It has a shit ton of purple prose. It's okay to have variety of words, but it's big words that almost no one kniws what it means so I often have to look up the definition. Also, it's dragging on and on and on and going almost nowhere with the detsil. It would be a good book if the author bothered to learn not to do these two things.
>>25620225i like the moon. i'd like to read a book about the clouds sometime
>>25620225>what is /lit/ currently reading?40k bolterslop, The Night Lords Omnibus, it's p gud
>>25620259Faggot.
>>25620225Ragnarok prophecy book 1
>>25620328My favorite part of Dracula is toward the end when one of the guys buys a big Bowie knife to chop off draculas head then another one ups him with a khukri. And they are all like ooohhhhh.
I haven't actually started reading it yet
>BLATANT DATA MINING THREAD
>>25621891tfw someone asks about what you’re reading on the literature board.
>>25620937>leaves me indifferentThat's why I put in quotes, as I feel nearly the same. Nonetheless, propoganda's 'real'
I do most of my reading on the train and I've been reading Chaucer, but ~150 pages into the Canterbury Tales I realise I much prefer reading it aloud than doing so under my breath. As such I've put it aside as my weekend book that I sit out on the back verandah and recite at volume to my neighbours (despite their wishes) while drinking beers, and changed my current 'train book' to the penguin classics "Greek Fiction", containing Callirhoe, Daphnis & Chloe, and Letters to Chion.
>>25620225Just finished The Trial by Kafka. Now reading a very very bad MFA novel that I won't dignify here by saying its title.
>>25621963wink wink nudge nudge.
>>25620225Dracula. I’m waiting for it to get good finally and running out of patience.
>>25620225A novel written by somebody from here and posted for free.It's surprisingly good.
>>25622018'Inspiration' is more or less the same. I am rather 'sorry' the Pooka 'bores' you, btw
>>25620225Started The Name of the Rose - so far, so good. Midway through Mark Twain's autobiography and three quarters through Don Quixote.
>>25622021The first 50 pages are the only good part so you're just fucked my friend.
>>25622066I heard the pacing improves in the second half. I hate the idea of DNF’ing books, but I was really tempted up until Lucy died and kind of got a second wind. But the last 1-2 chapters are back to boring slog.
>>25620225Treasure Island by Stevenson
>>25620225Da Big Sleep by Chandler. I can't believe he really wrote like that. Marlowe is a pretty cool character though.
I just finished Ice Age Barbarians IV (I came) and Faust I (I came). Currently reading Never Let Me Go by Ishiguro.
>>25621742You're in EVERY thread. Dry your clitty bitch. It's SHIT. S H I T.
>>25620225The Brothers Karmazov but Im still in the first hundred pages.
A Canticle for LeibowitzIt's not what I expected and I'm enjoying it a lot.
Servitude et grandeur militairesLes Fleurs du mal
>>25622027What's the name?
>>25622179I love those books and movies
>>25620560Fagles. I read his translations of some of the Greek dramas and liked them.
>>25620225The epic of Gilgamesh
>>25621683wonderful thank you for the response.
>>25622458Yeah, I kinda get the appeal now. I'll probably watch the movie after I finish both the book (and Red Harvest)Also, Carmen is so dumb, what the hell. I'll reserve my full judgment once I'm done, though
>>25620225There seems to be a lot of remorse.
>>25622541>McQueeris this a meme-book?
>>25622040Is this your first reading? I'm just finishing Sodom and Gomorrah. It's interesting how much weight Proust puts on the Dreyfus Affair. I understand that it was a large, divisive event in late 19th century France, but there seems to be some idea that every aristocrat and bourgeois had to have some sort of opinion on it. Proust's jewish roots shine through in a lot of the book, but this just stuck out to me.What do you think of the Baron de Charlus? I really like his depiction as speaking in codes to sneak around, and his assumptions and attempts to seduce Marcel. He comes off as if he is a stand-in for some of Proust's worst habits and tendencies.
Recently quit Crowbar by Edwards, just horribly written unfortunately. Unbearable, a pale imitation of Ellroy novels.Now reading The Earthen Dark by Kelly. While it's somewhat of a straightforward novel it's compelling enough and even though release date is 2026 it's somehow not faggoty. One of the only books I've ever read from 21st century that isn't gay race communism. It's so unusual to see a non far leftist point of view author write a book that doesn't suck dick. Getting mega points just for this feat.
>>25622648No. What it is is... average. Dialogue and narration written to mimic Scottish dialect/ pronunciation. Simple story, not enough suspense elements or turns of fortune to REALLY make it gripping. The chapters alternate between two POVS, a repressed and Milquetoast single mother and son. It's about a 19 year old no life who discovers the pill ideology through a friend he plays online with. .
The World as Will and Representation. At first I was only interested in Mainländer, but now I'm curious to learn more about Schopenhauer by whom Mainländer was heavily inspired by. I'm relatively new to philosophy, but Schopenhauer's thought and everything derived from it is really interesting to me, and I'm glad that I found a hobby outside my computer.
watership down, gravity's rainbow, run rabbit run.trying to culture myself. but i think i'm going to actually do the classics next and start with epic of gilgamesh.
>>25620225My own writing and GOD DAMN it's fine as fuck
>>25622683It's my first reading. I just got through the part in Mme de Villeparisis' salon. Not sure if the Dreyfus affair was that omnipresent in French society back then, but it provides a very interesting kind of lens on the mechanisms of how Parisian high society worked in Proust's eyes. Charlus is awesome but so far I haven't seen that much from him.
Indiana by George Sand
>>25623196Computers are gay
>>25623196If you’re new to philosophy why are you reading Schopenhauer? He says it himself twice in his own preface to The World as Will and Representation that you shouldn’t even bother trying to read it without reading Kant first.
It’s just a sayings book, so there’s no plot or anything. 99% of it is just “don’t eat, don’t drink wine, don’t leave your ‘cell’” again and again. It’s good material for falling asleep at night. I’m also working my way through a complete collection of the works of HG Wells. This is a sort of break from heavier reading material though.
Picked Death in Venice per Anon’s rec :3 although I barely started it so I contemplate about re-picking pic rel (or another Colin Dexter) instead.
I'm reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle for the (I think) sixth time
>>25620225Pic related. So far it's a bit of a drag since it's mostly foreshadowing of stuff I already know is going to happen. Looking forward to the Sphinx though.There's a Sphinx in this, right?
The Willows arrived. can I read it in one day?
>>25623375NTA but there will be things he misses and things he understands, enjoys, or disagrees with. this is generally how education proceeds. if we follow that line then you really can’t read anything western without starting with the greeks.
Currently reading Galahad and the grail and so far it's been pretty cool. The author advises you to read the verses out loud since it's the kind of story that's supposed to be told orally. I did that for a time and it was pretty cool.
>>25623474i think oedipus has sex with his mother and then kills his father and this is an allegory for human psychology
>>25620225I found a collection of Herman Melville's short stories at a yard sale. The stories obviously don't have the breathing room to be as thematically ambitious as Moby Dick, but his writing is incredibly entertaining and beautiful nonetheless. The Encantadas is written in a Gothic style, and Bartleby reminded me much of Kafka's short stories. I'm not even a quarter of the way through the book, but I'd highly recommend it if you have only ever read his Moby Dick.
>>25623315Read The Haunted Pool earlier this year; I like her writing
>>25620225Comfy stories by Herodotus
>Communion by Whitley Strieber >Pizzagate - The Complete Story: The Definitive Summary of History's Most Notorious Conspiracy Theory by Ace of Swords
I want to finally start and read Monte Cristo, but as a French in current year, the only edition you might find in bookstores is the one with the movie cover with Pierre Nineys faggot face. Fuck that.
>>25623685That’s a pretty facile statement imo
>>25623474Antigone is the best book in the trilogy.
>>25624547that doesn’t quite dispose the point. the most important part of reading anything (perhaps especially philosophy) is thinking for yourself.
>>25624553
>>25620225Currently reading these two. Augustus was a bit of a drag in the beginning but so far the second half is really good. Not as good as Stoner and Butcher's Crossing but maybe the ending will make me change my mind on that, we'll seeI've read a lot of 40k books but never read anything related to WHF. I'm loving it. It has a certain flavor to it that you just don't find in newer SFF books
>>25624569i’ve read it yeah. quite funny of you to reply to a charge that you aren’t thinking for yourself with … a direct quote with nothing said in your own words.
>>25624596Well I’m so terrified of crossing intellectual swords with you, you’ve displayed such an intimidating intellect already. I wish I was smart enough to just disregard the explicit directions of an author by regurgitating a meaningless platitude or two about “thinking for yourself”.
>>25624623no need to lower the tone of the conversation my account. an adversarial discussion doesn’t need to devolve to (overt) ‘you’re dumb’ patter. the quote unquote thinking for yourself idea does demand to be taken seriously imo. samuel butler said something about turning great works into homework>to emend the letter in small things and to obscure the spirit in great ones
>>25624639>no need to lower the tone of the conversation my accountI disagree. You strike me as exactly the type of person whom the conversation must be lowered to accordingly. Enjoy the last word peabrain, maybe I’ll see it tomorrow.
>>25624678cheerio.
I recently read The Sluts and it's a really good piece of ancient internet culture. Very dedicated, and not as pretentious as House of Leaves.Would recommend .
>>25624705He’s gonna flip when he sees this tomorrow
Started reading this, but dropped it because it stopped focusing on the based mind reading monk and switched to a pussy bitch sorcerer.
Elements of Theology by Proclus translated by Thomas Taylor
>>25620225Odyssey (Lattimore)On Book XV right now, pretty good so far. Hope to wrap up soon and get into the plays and Republic.
>>25625174it has some strong moments and is certainly some of the best genre fiction i've read, but yeah you need to put up with a lot of contrivances. at times it just reads like a guy who wanted to read literary/philosophical allegory, couldn't cut it, and so pivoted to dark fantasy to compensate.
>>25620274I was too harsh on The Vivisectors. This book is very good so far.
>>25621684Samefag here. I'm about 60% through. Not recommending for the same reasons I stated. I don't see how this has a 3.78 rating on Goodreads, and won a Goodreads 2013 Historical Fiction Award. I would venture to say it is on the same level as Twilight in regard to the purple prose and unneccesary text.
>>25625174keep going
>>25620225Just finished the Thrawn trilogy. Total fucking blast, going to start reading more Star Wars legends novels.
>>25625853I'll give it one more chance.
About half way through 2666. Not really enjoying it so far but the other Bolano stuff I've read had way better second halves than first halves so maybe the same will happen with this book
The RecognitionsPIHKALSurfaces and Essences Annals of the Former World
>>25626269Correlian Trilogy is good. Republic Commando books had me hooked as a kid.
>>25620242I'm reading ulysses myself, actually. Around 200 pages in, I kinda gave up on understanding every single thing but i can say I highly enjoy the prose and the experience of living with these characters' for a single day.
>>25626652>not pitying the gnostic schoolman
>>25620225Finished Gilgamesh now I'm reading a book on Freud and Jung's friendship.
>>25626902The best part is the last one but it's kind of a grind to read sometimes. Not too bad, just a little.
I have almost finished the Iliad and now I'm sad.
>>25627176I just recently started it and am book 4, why are you sad?
>>25624549That's the last one I read of him. Yeaah, so far Antigone was much better to be honest. I loved the sepulchral stuff.
>>25620225Bram Stoker's Lair of the White Worm. It's fabulously bad. It's completely incoherent and tedious but in a way that is bizarrely delightful. Characters enter into hushed conversation about mysteries and conspiracies and obtuse references to lurking dangers but then on approximately 147 separate occasions just say "Well it's getting late, let's all go to bed and resume this discussion later" and nothing ever gets revealed. Evil bird kite.
This one written by an autist who posts here.Full of obsessive rants but surprisingly well written and engaging.
>>25628565>>25628567I C U
>>25627967The book really grew on me. At first it was difficult to read through all the deaths of minor characters, but even that gave me a sense of scale.The book has some really good poetry (even in translation, Fagles) when the gods join the fighting and some absolutely beautiful passages outside of the fights.There are other good books, even books that are equally good, but probably not many that will feel similar to the Iliad.
>>25625174I ended up just reading something else once the main character was apparently gay and that other gay savage was whining about his father or something, but I really liked his writing.Do you guys know of any other newer fantasy or scifi where the prose is good?
>>25624105>puh-puh-puh-pizzagateoh so mentally ill stuff>dude the elites are raping+eating children because they said pizza in an email and everyone knows 60-year old elite boomers think "cheese pizza" means "child porn" because that's the code 18-year old retards on /b/ used in 2006cool coolby the way, your image suggests you aren't paying taxes?
>>25620303You definitely sound like an insecure loser. Sorry that's just the way you project yourself.
>>25628781I have finished the book.I had actually dropped it twice in the past, around the books where all the minor characters get killed, or the catalogue of ships or so. Never even planned to drop it, I had told myself that I will just take a break but never continued. It's definitely worth finishing.
>>25624549Antigone is a great book.
>>25628994Why not just put the sci fi / fantasy requirement in the trash where it belongs? There's tons of books with stunning prose if you can let loose of that predilection.
>>25626923based, what chapter you on now?
>>25628994>Do you guys know of any other newer fantasy or scifi where the prose is good?No, we do not.
>>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.
