QTDDTOT

Questions That Don't Deserve Their Own Thread

Am I too dumb? I can't understand some books, like Shakespeare, Joyce, Dante and basically all poets. What should I do? I'm not a novice on literature, I read a lot of classics already like Crime and Punishment, Kafka on the Shore, Les Miserables and others, but I still have a lot of difficulty to understand some authors.

Nah man you're probably just not interested enough to really invest into it. Plus shit like Joyce is honestly a chore, depending on the read. Just read what interests you . Plus if you're fulling understanding Kafka and other classics you can't be THAT retarded.

Is postmodernism a meme? I had the idea to start with house of leaves without knowing about how it was formatted, and without even reading a page the entire thing seems pretentious as fuck. Is there another starting point for the genre, or should I just try to read through this and see how it goes?

Postmodernism actually reverts to premodern attitudes such as syncreticism instead of positivism. It shouldn't be called post-modern; it should be recognized as the aftermath of Modernity's failure.

Can I become as a good of an author as Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy with pure effort? How should I begin pursuing that dream?

You're literally just reading random crap being thrown at you, even though you have A: no interest in what you're reading and B: no foundation for most of it.
You can't, literally cannot, understand Joyce without having a handbook on huge swathes of the western canon, or an extreme memory. You cannot read Dante and get anything from it without having read and well understood several layers of earlier Greek and Roman poets, as well as Catholic Christian works.

You should be selecting books on topics, themes or styles you're actually interested in, and then working UP to the giants of the canon, not working from whatever old erudite text sounds smart and trying to reverse-engineer it.

That said, if you're a native English speaker and can't understand Shakespeare, there's no hope.

Why can't you pretentious contrarians handle the fact that the Harry Potter series is actually good literature?

No. Tolstoevsky is a combination of natural talent, provocative life experiences, pure struggle for subsistence, in an era where adversity meant starving and freezing to death, and millions of other minutia. You can't become 'as good' as any other writer, you're working on a different house in a different time with a unique toolbox.

>>>/reddit/ is down the hall and to the left

Did you come up with this? Or do you have a source to explore this analysis. It is interesting to say the least.

I am not a native english speaker, thanks for the advice.

It isn't, people in Academia legitimately subscribe to post-modernism, It's like a religion to them.

Start with the Greeks.

I came up with it but I'm too busy to really flesh it out. I've been reading a lot of medieval texts and find surprising parallels with postmodernism. Idk feel free to expand on it yourself if you like. I work too much and have a four month old so no time

I'm not talking about being exactly like them, nor writing about the same subjects and experiences as them, but to write books as good as theirs. You can't be a good mathematician without talent, no matter how hard you try, you can never get close to Gauss, Euler, Pascal or Newton if you don't have enough talent, but what about literature? Is it also all about talent or could one reach the top with pure effort alone?

I'm going to ruin your parade and point out this isn't exactly a unique theory, you see people accidentally stumbling on a similar line of thought all the time, nearly every religious figure could be described as post-modern and fits the criteria perfectly.

pic related was basically the proto-Nietzsche.

Thanks

What books from the medieval era did you read, just so I see how you worked around that idea?

Go out and do a lot of stupid things with your life and then ask the question again when you're ready to throat punch reality with schizophrenia.

Who's good at translating Dante? I've looked at the opening of Mandelbaum's and Ciardi's and they don't seem too good.
>inb4 just learn Italian

Why won't my capcha show up? Have to phonepost like a degenerate

Why every board hate phoneposters? I post mostly from my iphone and ipad because I'm too lazy to turn on the pc everyday just to post on this site. Am I inferior because of that?

>iPhone
>iPad

You're not inferior, you're just retarded.


Sent from my Android phone.

Anyone have reccomendations for someone who loved The Sound and the Fury? Just haven't been able to find anything that stacks up for me

Search for Stream of Consciousness.

Any reccomendations for best Virgina Woolf novel? I have a copy of the waves I ordered online but the first 40 pages are literally covered in crayon so I'll probably order another copy or another novel

What's a book that portrays the general idea of postmodernism

i'll indulge you. How is it good?

i'm not him but what exactly do you mean? what was that about schizophrenia?

If Veeky Forums was a country, either historical or contemporary, what would it be?

I would say the Weimar Republic

Do you really get more of out actually reading philosophical texts, than just papers/encyclopedias that summarize their main points and arguments? If philosophy is trying to establish things through logic, then isn't simply reading the propositions more or less enough? When I try to read most philosophical texts, it just bores me to tears, because it seems like they are just repeating statements over and over. I feel like a dumb philistine because of this. I get far more enjoyment from reading ABOUT Aritotles views, for instance, than actually reading his works.

I have one ....

I think I saw a post a while back that linked to a site that, apparently, catalogs every post and thread on this site. What's that site? What's the deal with that? How does it work? Why is it doing it? Does it do it for all of Veeky Forums? Thanks.

Breakfast of Champions

You can't "subscribe" to postmodern literature that doesn't even make sense

you could try the other books written by the guy whose book you loved

The Book of the New Sun has been sold to me as 'fantasy for pretentious twats' so it's right up my alley. Is this true?

I get frustrated by GRRM's writing, peppered with jarring sentences as it is, and have an extreme allergy to adverbs.

I've read as I lay dying and Absalom is on its way. Mostly everyone just recommends Joyce and Woolf besides Faulkner but just wanted to know some other options

The series built an entire world full of interesting ideas and characters that are far from one-dimensional. The books are compelling to read, you always want to see what happens next in the story. Yes the fans can be insufferable and it's ultimately aimed at younger audiences, but as far as popular franchises go you could do far worse (i.e. Twilight, and even that is relatively dead now compared to HP). It's going to stand the test of time as a solid book series.

It's actually science fiction for pretentious twats, but it's got a strong fantasy vibe because it takes place so far in the future that the world has changed, it is full of sufficiently advanced technology, and there are strong currents of mysticism and Providence that run through it. You'll love it.

warosu.org/lit/
archive.4plebs.org
desuarchive.org
boards.fireden.net
rbt.asia

Postmodernism: a Very Short Introduction

Post-Gaddafi Libya

>Do you really get more of out actually reading philosophical texts
Yes, for example, by reading the text what you get is the text, and by not reading the text what you get is not the text.
>I feel like a dumb philistine because of this
Then stop being one.

I just finished The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge and really liked it, but haven't seen her work mentioned in the sci-fi threads. Is Veeky Forums going to call me a pleb for liking it?

> If philosophy is trying to establish things through logic, then isn't simply reading the propositions more or less enough?

bait

How is that bait? It's a legitimate question

>haven't seen her work mentioned in the sci-fi threads
Stop lurking them and ask there directly: >Is Veeky Forums going to call me a pleb for liking it?
Rather, Veeky Forums is going to call you a pleb for liking genre fiction.

just because you don't like joyce it does not mean its bad or a chore. I have read chamber music, dubliners, portrait and ulysses and not once I felt I was reading something I didn't want to just to be able to say I did, it was thoroughly entertaining and I am always re-reading either a dubliners story, or portrait and ulysses.

>You can't, literally cannot, understand Joyce without having a handbook on huge swathes of the western canon
you could read the whole western canon 3 times, you will not understand it fully, but even without reading hundreds of books, one can enjoy ulysses, having read homer, hamlet, portrait and preferably the bible too, but one needs be 'mature literature-wise' and one must be actually interested to read it

Is there anywhere online you get academic books, or more academic additions of books?

They cost quite a lot usually, and online copies of books are usually pretty shitty editions.