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Lmao imagine readng a book
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Jun 18, 2014 13:25
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Mister Kingdom posted:It's more fun to talk about the bad. Hello Mister Kingdom, you can read good literature and simply enjoy the words as they are presented to you on the page for being well constructed and beautiful and not even think about any meaning to yourself/the human peoples of the world. However, the very best books of all just cause you to think about them even when you are not reading them and you spontaneously engage in your own analysis and think about whether you believe the Don Quixote of Pierre Menard is the same as the Don QUixote of Miquel de Cervantes or if you think a man running across Europe trying to stop a bomb being launched by black Nazi commandos might bear some relevance to your own life. You don't need to sit and analyse every aspect but you will catch yourself thinking about the book on a level above "I hope Arya dies next". Please read good books the Book Barn I recommend to you Dictionary of the Khazars by Milorad Pavic it is very enjoyable, has some really great words, is interestingly written and is largely an analogy for modern Serbia but you don't even need to think about that if you don't want to (I didn't)
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Jun 18, 2014 13:37
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Whalley posted:If you read genre fiction you're a child and only non genre stuff is allowed to have deeper meanings. Alif the Unseen may have seemed like an exploration of the balance between tradition and technology over the backdrop of a criticism of Western concepts of intellectual freedom but that's only because you're a child reading books about genies by comic book authors go suck a diaper you nerd I must have missed the discussion on this one while looking at the 1 000 000 000 page Harry Potter thread
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Jun 18, 2014 13:55
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Poutling posted:Honestly, the biggest issue I find with TBB is that everyone reads and talks about the same books, all the drat time. It doesn't matter if it's in a 'no genre' thread or in a thread like cosmic horror, there's like 50 books that TBB reads and talks about ad nauseam. If you look at the Cosmic Horror thread, 90% of the talk in there is about Laird Barron and Thomas Ligotti. Also, Cormac McCarthy!!!! Constantly. Right now, everyone talks about Dictionary of the Khazars. Yes, I read it. Yes, it was good. Yes, I've also read Cormac McCarthy. I wish we could talk about some new books. Also some female authors would be nice. Lmao I think the only person being all Dictionary of Khazars!! is me I haven't seen anyone else say anything about it.
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Jun 18, 2014 23:15
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I don't think anyone is saying read books you don't enjoy reading just that if you read books that you enjoy reading and make you think thoughts you may end up having a richer experience in this great game we call life.
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Jun 19, 2014 22:03
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Pessimisten posted:My god, the irony of this loving thread. You'd think people talking about the virtues of lit discussions and analysis would be a bit more open to actually reading posts and discussing them. Who the gently caress really has a prosecution complex in here? I don't identify with TBB or so called "genre fiction" and i could give a rats rear end about anyones opinion in either. I simply wanted to point out how this thread proclaims to serve some kind of purpose of broadening this forum while doing the exact opposite and alienating anyone who identified with the things you state so clearly to be bad and childish. This Noone guy sounds pretty scary  hahahaha I'm just kidding man you have a good day
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Jun 19, 2014 22:41
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As Camus teaches us it is not the quality but the quantity of experiences that matters.
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Jun 29, 2014 13:57
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Furious Lobster posted:I had to struggle to come up with well-written, non-genre, female-author literature that have come out in the last twenty or so years and found it fairly embarrassing that the only one that came to mind is the one I've recommended. Similarly, in keeping up with this thread, I'm also looking for contemporaneous (give or take 20 years), well-written, non-genre works by female authors if such recommendations are to be had. Lydia Davis is good here's one of her short stories picked at semi random: Mother's Reaction to My Travel Plans Gainesville! It's too bad your cousin is dead!
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Jul 2, 2014 16:21
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I honestly think the bolding of the names of books is worse than the fact no one reads.
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Jul 8, 2014 16:36
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blue squares posted:It's good for scanning threads to find mention of books you've read/want to discuss. It's bad.
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Jul 8, 2014 17:14
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Lmao if you somehow can't see that bolding the titles of books in posts is a blight on the world IMO.
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Jul 12, 2014 13:55
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Mr.48 posted:Thats exactly my point, we revere those authors whose works still hold meaning to us generations after their publication. This is what makes them classics of literature, not their genre. If you are writing expressly with the purpose of "wouldn't it be sick if rthere were dinosaurs in Chicago" then you work is less likely to endure the ages than someone who is writing to cpnvey a brutal image of the human condition IMO
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Jul 12, 2014 16:32
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computer parts posted:Shakespeare was common trash and the only reason he's remembered now is that the common people actually liked his plays. Actually shakespeare is remembered on account of him being one of the greatest writers ever, IMHO.
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Jul 15, 2014 11:34
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mallamp posted:At least 19th Century poets tried, modern poets are basically just trolls who wanted to be writers but failed, so they decided to start writing random poo poo. Actually a lot of modern poetry is exceedingly beautiful and conveys things that would not be suited to prosaical form, IMHO.
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Jul 15, 2014 11:35
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Individul author threads wouldn't work because since I posted it in February or something the not genre fic thread has got 6 pages and in that time the old dresden files thread has been closed and a new one has been opened and it has 30 pages of posts.
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Jul 15, 2014 22:21
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All Nines posted:How modern are we talking? If there are any living poets who are actually good I haven't encountered them yet, so recommendations would be great. Seamus Heaney is quite good and so are others.
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Jul 15, 2014 22:22
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Holy moly I just found out Seamus Heaney died last year
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Jul 15, 2014 22:23
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Hello I actually am pretentious and don't enjoy any of the books I say I do I just read and reread The Man Who Was Thurdsday.
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Jul 17, 2014 10:37
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Rime posted:I thought this was the thread where we all wore black turtlenecks and caps whilst telling everyone else that their genre of reading material was lovely, and then pulling out our own lovely choices as an alternative. Agreed.
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Jul 17, 2014 10:40
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tonytheshoes posted:It surprises me that Jorge Luis Borges hasn't been mentioned in this thread. I picked up Collected Fictions a while back and it continues to blow my mind. His stories are like literary brain-teasers, with plenty of things to decipher, piece together and puzzle out for yourself. Borges' essays are all really well informed investigtions of interesting topics and occasionally he just makes up funny references to prove a point http://www.alamut.com/subj/artiface/language/johnWilkins.html
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Jul 24, 2014 10:07
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The idea that you have to read bad stuff before you can read good stuff is so dumb.
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Jul 31, 2014 16:58
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I think it would be possible to read The Trial and experience a lot of thoughts and emotions even if you hadn't read The Da Vinci Code
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Jul 31, 2014 17:28
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When I was a baby I read Redwall but now I am a grown man I don't have to grind out levsls on The Dresden Files.
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Jul 31, 2014 19:52
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There are no good books that are easy to read.
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Jul 31, 2014 19:54
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Raskolnikov2089 posted:Which is my entire point. You don't just start out reading Joyce. People read a lot of genre crap, and eventually some will move on to higher-grade crap. Err werll that's just a Strawman, and errr Occam's Razor says that you just begged the question checkmate motherfucker.
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Jul 31, 2014 19:56
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inktvis posted:Wouldn't be a bad idea for people to go back and take a look at the context of this post. I actually truly believe it and wanted to express my opinion and just happened to do it at a time that makes it look like I was being sarcastic.
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Aug 3, 2014 00:03
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You should constantly be struggling and striving to read, and if you actually enjoy the time you spend it is worthless.
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Aug 3, 2014 00:35
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Mr.48 posted:I genuinely don't get this snobbish attitude that most of this thread reeks of. Who cares if people read silly pulp for their own enjoyment? Are you that insecure about your own intelligence and taste in book? Its like the people who get off on these literary circle-jerks are the closeted republicans of the written word. I am.
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Aug 3, 2014 18:50
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blue squares posted:Every one of your posts in TBB is worthless. I am sorry you feel that way, and I preferred your old avatar if you were the guy with the asparagus wearing sunglasses.IF not, I am merely sorry.
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Aug 3, 2014 23:59
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Name of the Rose is detective/mystery y and really good.
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Aug 8, 2014 18:29
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The outisder and the plague by Albert Camus are basically the first absurdist novels and they are good. Generally you and everyone else should read MOscow to the end of the line (also called Moscow-Petushki) by Venedikt Erofeev because it is a prose poem about a man getting drunk on the train and it is really good.
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Aug 8, 2014 18:34
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I just read INVISIBLE CITIES by ITALO CALVINO and it's very good but the fact everyone describes it as Marco Polo describing cities to Kublai Khan but actually he's talking about Venice the whole time makes it sound a lot dumber and worse than it is and also entirely misses the point. Good book
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Aug 31, 2014 20:07
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Mr. Squishy posted:lol at any online poll pretending to have any validity as those ballot boxes are entirely stuffable. Please don't typecast me. I also make boring white noise posts in this thread that make the asparagus av guy angry.
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Sep 1, 2014 13:59
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Read short things that are good. If you want vivid pictures then you should read Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino which doesn't really have a plot but is basically just beautiful descriptions of fantastical cities used to make philosophical points on the nature of knowledge and language and that sort of thing. Also try Fictions by Borges, a collection of short stories all loosely based around the nature of storytelling. Again, they tend not to have plots and are more explorations of concepts. If you want something with a little more story going on the you should read THE MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY, A NIGHTMARE, by G. K. CHESTERTON it's short and good and while you can definitely enjoy it without necessarily thinking about what the point of it was, you can also think about that too.
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Sep 7, 2014 21:56
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If you want something longer read Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov I can guarantee you won't realise you've heard the plot somewhere else and the writing is all about establishing lovely vivid pictures in your brain.
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Sep 7, 2014 22:04
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mallamp posted:But it's not simple as that with him... He also planted seeds for existentialism with Notes from Underground, and I'm especially thinking about Brothers Karamazov which explores both 'sides' pretty well. Existentialism and being really religious aren't mutually exclusive just look at Kierkegaard
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Sep 8, 2014 22:56
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I bought What We Talk About When We Talk About Love because of people saying it was good earlier in the thread, and it's good.
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Sep 15, 2014 14:46
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Astrofig posted:ARE there versions that don't have those? That's good to know. I'll look for one of those then. Couldn't you just not read the annotations in the annotated copy you have?
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Sep 22, 2014 16:04
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Do you mean like the 100% classics in just literature or for every subject like philosophy, history etc.
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Sep 30, 2014 14:51
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Earwicker posted:While reading the Bible isn't what I'd call "fun" it is in fact incredibly helpful in understanding a lot of western literature and art in general given the constant references to Biblical characters and stories that have dominated said art for centuries. I was going to say this seemed surprisingly concise for a Western canon then realised it's part 1
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Sep 30, 2014 15:49
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