Read Some Real Literature: Anyway hail satantango

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Read Some Real Literature: Anyway hail satantango

Jrbg: May 20, 2014

Smoking Crow posted:

The two good ones are Camus and Nietzsche give them a try

Russell's 'History of Western Philosophy' is well-written. As for the history itself, that's more debatable. But when he's summarising the ideas, it's brilliant.

An actual philosophy book I think is very lucid and well-written is Phillippa Foot's 'Natural Goodness'. Another writer whose clarity I admire is Elizabeth Anscombe

# ? Mar 12, 2015 17:38

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# ? May 16, 2024 01:25

CestMoi: Sep 16, 2011

mycophobia posted:

I disagree! I feel like On Certainty, in particular, could've been drastically reduced. I feel like Wittgenstein himself would have done it had he not died.

I've not read on certainty so you;re probably right there but PI is absolutely as clear as it could possibly be and is basically perfect.

# ? Mar 12, 2015 17:43

CestMoi: Sep 16, 2011

blue squares posted:

The sad fact is that most philosophers are terrible writers. I'm reading Heidegger this semester and fuuuuck

To be fair Heidegger is famously bad at writing anything that makes sense, lots of other philosophers are at least alright at wtriting, they're just writing about difficult topics

# ? Mar 12, 2015 17:45

novamute: Jul 5, 2006; o o o

J_RBG posted:

Russell's 'History of Western Philosophy' is well-written. As for the history itself, that's more debatable. But when he's summarising the ideas, it's brilliant.

This is the only book on philosophy that I've ever read that I'd say was well-written. Philosophers in general are terrible at communicating their ideas and the tendency to fall back on invented language really doesn't help anything.

I'd love to read Om det Tragiske by Zapffe if it ever gets translated (or I suddenly learn Norweigan). The Last Messiah is one of the most beautiful and cogent pieces of philosophy I've read.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/45/The_Last_Messiah
If the link says you need to be a subscriber you can get to it by googling then clicking the link there

novamute fucked around with this message at 17:52 on Mar 12, 2015

# ? Mar 12, 2015 17:47

blue squares: Sep 28, 2007

All language is invented language.

# ? Mar 12, 2015 17:48

Jrbg: May 20, 2014

CestMoi posted:

lots of other philosophers are at least alright at wtriting, they're just writing about difficult topics

I'd agree with this, a lot of the time words are introduced to refer to or support specific contexts and then are only used in that specific context. Jargon is a tool. Confusion comes about when you look up the word in the dictionary if you skimmed that bit and you then go 'this drat sentence makes no sense'. Not to mention if you have a sentence with lots of jargon in and then quote it to peeps on the internet and say, 'Look! They're just saying random stuff!'

novamute posted:

This is the only book on philosophy that I've ever read that I'd say was well-written. Philosophers in general are terrible at communicating their ideas and the tendency to fall back on invented language really doesn't help anything.

I think that's a bit uncharitable.

# ? Mar 12, 2015 17:52

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

blue squares posted:

The Fall is pretty good. The Stranger was a little overrated in my opinion. I've read about 10% of Nietzsche's work and he can be pretty great, agreed. l like when he writes angry letters to his sister about her anti-semitism.

Plague and Sisyphus are his best work, I agree that Stranger is slightly over-rated

To read Nietzche is to experience life-altering revelations but I always end up wondering if he actually came up with those revelations himself or just used enigmatic language to stimulate the reader into coming up with cool poo poo on their own.

# ? Mar 12, 2015 17:53

Ras Het: May 23, 2007; when I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child - but now I am a man.

IMO The Stranger is only overrated in the sense that it's life-altering capacities are overstated if you're over 17. Over. It's a fantastic story.

# ? Mar 12, 2015 17:56

blue squares: Sep 28, 2007

Here's a sentence from an article in an academic journal I read:
"As a spatio-temporal user orientation that emerges through particular material-rhetorical arrangements that produce the conditions for routinized embodied practices, the material chronotope functions somewhat like linguistic commonplaces."

This sentence makes perfect sense to me because I'm reading the article and its all explained, but out of context it'd look like a bunch of nonsense to most people.

# ? Mar 12, 2015 17:59

novamute: Jul 5, 2006; o o o

J_RBG posted:

I think that's a bit uncharitable.

Probably. They are trying to communicate something much more difficult and precise than most other fields. Just frustrating when you finally grasp their point and it seems like they've just been running circles around it for 300 pages. Russell's book really makes it apparent too when he distills entire books down into something like 5 pages of clarity and then you read the original book and realize that it actually has less to it than the summary.

novamute fucked around with this message at 18:04 on Mar 12, 2015

# ? Mar 12, 2015 18:00

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

Ras Het posted:

IMO The Stranger is only overrated in the sense that it's life-altering capacities are overstated if you're over 17. Over. It's a fantastic story.

Eh, I read it at a really, really, really bad time, but overall I felt like it was Camus passing through a cynical, nihilistic Sartre phase before he got to the positive, life-affirming works like Sisyphus and Plague. I think what really makes Camus worth reading is his response to nihilism, and Stranger isn't that, yet.

Said another way, if you have a friend contemplating suicide, you can legitimately give them Sisyphus and/or Plague in an attempt to help. If you have an enemy contemplating suicide you might give them Stranger.

# ? Mar 12, 2015 18:01

Antwan3K: Mar 8, 2013

Smoking Crow posted:

The two good ones are Camus and Nietzsche give them a try

Kierkegaard son.

Also sometimes Marx and esp. Lenin

# ? Mar 12, 2015 18:07

Mel Mudkiper: Jan 19, 2012; At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Derrida is very readable if you're schizophrenic

# ? Mar 12, 2015 20:18

Ezzum: Mar 13, 2014; For Now

Sartre is a pretty good writer I'd say. Honestly, I prefer his fiction to Camus's, at least from what I've read.

# ? Mar 12, 2015 20:42

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

Oh Sartre is brilliant but I don't find him as useful. Like, Camus has legitimately helped friends of mine deal with depression and constructively deal with suicidal tendencies.

# ? Mar 12, 2015 20:55

Mel Mudkiper: Jan 19, 2012; At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Oh Sartre is brilliant but I don't find him as useful. Like, Camus has legitimately helped friends of mine deal with depression and constructively deal with suicidal tendencies.

the irony being that Camus committed suicide

# ? Mar 13, 2015 02:39

Smoking Crow: Feb 14, 2012; *laughs at u*

Imo, Sartre is more important in a pure philosophical sense but Camus is more popular due to his accessibility.

# ? Mar 13, 2015 02:42

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

Mel Mudkiper posted:

the irony being that Camus committed suicide

No he didn't? He was killed in a car crash? Am I missing a joke?

The comedy death option for philosophers is still Nietzche's impassioned horse-hugging.

# ? Mar 13, 2015 02:52

Mel Mudkiper: Jan 19, 2012; At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

No he didn't? He was killed in a car crash? Am I missing a joke?

I always heard it suggested he might have done it deliberately but now I see he was not even driving so just ignore me

# ? Mar 13, 2015 03:02

Mel Mudkiper: Jan 19, 2012; At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Also if we are taking about author deaths, everyone always talks about Oscar Wilde's last words, but Henrik Ibsen to me always had the best death joke

# ? Mar 13, 2015 03:08

ulvir: Jan 2, 2005

Mel Mudkiper posted:

Also if we are taking about author deaths, everyone always talks about Oscar Wilde's last words, but Henrik Ibsen to me always had the best death joke

I really want the story to be true because his passing words fits his personality so perfectly

# ? Mar 13, 2015 09:32

Shibawanko: Feb 13, 2013

blue squares posted:

The sad fact is that most philosophers are terrible writers. I'm reading Heidegger this semester and fuuuuck

I think it's partly because a lot of philosophers' ideas could be written out in a more straightforward way to us because we are readers who live in later times, and a lot of their ideas already make some kind of intuitive sense to us, and whatever terms they've introduced have already become familiar to us. Like if you want to explain Freud for instance (though Freud was actually a pretty good writer I think) you wouldn't really have to explain what the unconscious is to a modern reader, we would probably already know it. They wrote for an audience to whom their ideas were entirely new.

Like, the distinction between Sein and Dasein seems just kind of obvious once you understand what it is, it's really not a difficult thing to understand (particularly if you explain it using examples, rather than in the abstract), but it was difficult to introduce I guess. Are you reading Heidegger in German?

Shibawanko fucked around with this message at 14:11 on Mar 13, 2015

# ? Mar 13, 2015 14:09

V. Illych L.: Apr 11, 2008; ASK ME ABOUT LUMBER

heidegger makes up his own language and terms which he proceeds to use competently

that problem isn't the use, it's that he means something very particular by every one of his terms (and sometimes those terms have other, more popular meanings) and you have to really know exactly what he means for it to work, and he has a bad habit of stating what he means once in the passing and then just moving on

gently caress heidegger, but at least he's better than hegel

# ? Mar 13, 2015 14:24

Stravinsky: May 31, 2011

Mel Mudkiper posted:

Also if we are taking about author deaths, everyone always talks about Oscar Wilde's last words, but Henrik Ibsen to me always had the best death joke

"Holy poo poo. Piss. Its so hotta in here"
-Sylvia plath

# ? Mar 13, 2015 16:30

ulvir: Jan 2, 2005

V. Illych L. posted:

heidegger makes up his own language and terms which he proceeds to use competently

that problem isn't the use, it's that he means something very particular by every one of his terms (and sometimes those terms have other, more popular meanings) and you have to really know exactly what he means for it to work, and he has a bad habit of stating what he means once in the passing and then just moving on

gently caress heidegger, but at least he's better than hegel

And unsurprisingly, since Gadamer was a student of his, he adopted Heidegger's style.

# ? Mar 13, 2015 16:37

Mel Mudkiper: Jan 19, 2012; At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Stravinsky posted:

"Holy poo poo. Piss. Its so hotta in here"
-Sylvia plath

"Aw, gently caress something is stuck in the barrell, lemme see what it is" - Ernest Hemingway

# ? Mar 13, 2015 16:39

Normal Adult Human: Feb 12, 2012; by FactsAreUseless

A human heart posted:

Queequeg is a polynesian.

That doesn't matter because the narrator thinks he's a muslim and thinks him having night seizures is Ramadan.

Or the author just didn't know anything about muslims and just lumped together everything he'd heard of all the non christian religions.

Normal Adult Human fucked around with this message at 17:02 on Mar 13, 2015

# ? Mar 13, 2015 17:00

remember: Nov 23, 2006

Mel Mudkiper posted:

Also if we are taking about author deaths, everyone always talks about Oscar Wilde's last words, but Henrik Ibsen to me always had the best death joke

I always like Voltaire's last words

# ? Mar 13, 2015 21:10

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

Normal Adult Human posted:

That doesn't matter because the narrator thinks he's a muslim and thinks him having night seizures is Ramadan.

Or the author just didn't know anything about muslims and just lumped together everything he'd heard of all the non christian religions.

Think it's more the narrator than the author, but yeah.

# ? Mar 13, 2015 21:24

Shibawanko: Feb 13, 2013

What's a good text if you want to understand different currents within Buddhism in general? I am trying to understand Buddhism in Japan, like the way different sects are tied to political currents (like New Komeito is tied to Soka Gakkai), but when I try to read about it I just get a bunch of Buddhism jargon about sutras and dharmas and whatnot. I just want to know what the main theses and ideas of different currents are, in summary, for someone who isn't really familiar with it.

# ? Mar 14, 2015 03:44

Nineball: Mar 27, 2010; He is starting to suspect Kras Mazov *fucked him over* personally with his socio-economic theory. It has, however, made him into a very, very smart boy with something like a university degree in Truth. Instead of building Communism, he now builds a precise model of this grotesque, duplicitous world.

Shibawanko posted:

I don't have any particular suggestions for texts, but you might be interested in the http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3548558&pagenumber=1&perpage=40 Buddhist thread, there's some pretty well versed people that could give you a hand.

# ? Mar 14, 2015 06:28

Red Dad Redemption: Sep 29, 2007

Shibawanko posted:

What's a good text if you want to understand different currents within Buddhism in general? I am trying to understand Buddhism in Japan, like the way different sects are tied to political currents (like New Komeito is tied to Soka Gakkai), but when I try to read about it I just get a bunch of Buddhism jargon about sutras and dharmas and whatnot. I just want to know what the main theses and ideas of different currents are, in summary, for someone who isn't really familiar with it.

I haven't done a survey of survey treatises, so perhaps there are better options, but this book should fill the bill for you pretty nicely:

http://www.amazon.com/Buddhism-Barrons-Compact-Studies-Religions/dp/0812002725

# ? Mar 14, 2015 21:17

Fedelm: Apr 21, 2013; It's called Ursa Major, not Ursula Merger. And that's not even it. That's Orion.

Mel Mudkiper posted:

Speaking of classic war texts the T�in B� C�ailnge doesn't give enough love

I guess the T�in only gives as much as it gets?! Also,

Kinsella translation posted:

The first warp-spasm seized C�chulainn, and made him into a monstrous thing, hideous and shapeless, unheard of.

His shanks and his joints, every knuckle and angle and organ from head to foot, shook like a tree in the flood or a reed in the stream. His body made a furious twist inside his skin, so that his feet and shins and knees switched to the rear and his heels and calves switched to the front. The balled sinews of his calves switched to the front of his shins, each big knot the size of a warrior's bunched fist. On his head the temple-sinews stretched to the nape of his neck, each mighty, immense, measureless knob as big as the head of a month-old child.

His face and features became a red bowl; he sucked one eye so deep into his head that a wild crane could not probe it onto his cheek out of the depths of his skull; the other eye fell out along his cheek. His mouth weirdly distorted: his cheek peeled back from his jaws until the gullet appeared; his lungs and liver flapped in his mouth and throat; his lower jaw struck the upper a lion-killing blow, and fiery flakes large as a ram's fleece reached his mouth from his throat.

His heart boomed loud in his breast like the baying of a watch-dog at its feed or the sound of a lion among bears. Malignant mists and spurts of fire -- the torches of the Badb -- flickered red in the vaporous clouds that rose boiling above his head, so fierce was his fury.

# ? Mar 16, 2015 00:43

CestMoi: Sep 16, 2011

PEople that like Infinite Jest: why do you think this book is good because I'm reading it and I don't think it's very good.

This is a serious question and I promise protection from trolling for the duration of your answer(s).

# ? Mar 16, 2015 18:28

ulvir: Jan 2, 2005

CestMoi posted:

PEople that like Infinite Jest: why do you think this book is good because I'm reading it and I don't think it's very good.

This is a serious question and I promise protection from trolling for the duration of your answer(s).

the book would be great if DFW scrapped 90% of it and made a a couple of novellas about the AA meetings and the Crazy Canucks instead,

# ? Mar 16, 2015 18:45

Alhazred: Feb 16, 2011

ulvir posted:

I really want the story to be true because his passing words fits his personality so perfectly

Contrarian to the end.

# ? Mar 16, 2015 19:00

Mel Mudkiper: Jan 19, 2012; At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

CestMoi posted:

PEople that like Infinite Jest: why do you think this book is good because I'm reading it and I don't think it's very good.

This is a serious question and I promise protection from trolling for the duration of your answer(s).

Authentic meditations on suicide and addictions

Human portrayals of young athletes and the burden of striving for greatness

use of irony to condemn commercialism and easy-access media

# ? Mar 16, 2015 19:11

Mel Mudkiper: Jan 19, 2012; At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.

Also spoiler

A group of paraplegic Quebecois annexation extremists infiltrating a teen tennis tournament in order to steal a video tape of mass destruction

# ? Mar 16, 2015 19:15

Jeep: Feb 20, 2013

CestMoi posted:

PEople that like Infinite Jest: why do you think this book is good because I'm reading it and I don't think it's very good.

This is a serious question and I promise protection from trolling for the duration of your answer(s).

I'm not going to say the novel is entirely bad but it is nowhere worthy of the praise it gets. It's bloated beyond belief. It tries to achieve the erudition that a Pynchon novel has but DFW comes off as condescending and pretentious as opposed to learned.

I know I'm gonna catch scorn for this because it's a big part of what that pretty lovely eXile article based its criticism on, but the novel is very, very White. The "you probably didn't know that..." section, which gets heaps of praise, basically puts forth the assumption that the reader is an unworldly shut-in who's never met any non-middle class human.

Finally I find its condemnation of Irony (and I'm probably bleeding into his TV Essay (which I also feel is dated but to no fault of his) here with his praise of "single-principle entendres") feels very short sighted and ignorant of a lot of sincere work that was going on around the same time that he was writing the novel.

I'm not trying to be a contrarian so if anyone wants to take me to school on some of these points I'd be more than happy :unsmith:

# ? Mar 16, 2015 19:58

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# ? May 16, 2024 01:25

Transistor Rhythm: Feb 16, 2011; If setting the Sustain Level in the ENV to around 7, you can obtain a howling sound.

CestMoi posted:

PEople that like Infinite Jest: why do you think this book is good because I'm reading it and I don't think it's very good.

This is a serious question and I promise protection from trolling for the duration of your answer(s).

It's really, really, really funny. Like laugh-out-loud on public transportation against your hard ingrained urban stonefaced train mode funny. It's funny as balls! It's like a Vonnegut or Sedaris book for people with bigger vocabularies, who have experienced crippling depression or addiction.

# ? Mar 16, 2015 20:51

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