>Questions that don't deserve their own thread
Among the French realists, is Proust the best one? I'm interested in reading something in the genre to see how it is and I don't know if Swann's Way is a good start. And is a translation detrimental to enjoy his work? I don't know if he puts too much emphasis in the word building and "musicality", it could be a problem if it lies on prose too much.
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Proust, Marcel. Slope headed, small forehead small-lobed, specimen. A Jewish scoundrel and French homosexual. Dislike him intensely.
In Search of Lost Time. Aptly titled.
Jean Santeuil. A formidable abandonment.
Still mad, Corncob McCarthy?
McCarthy. Don't know him. Haven't read a book written after the 1960s.
He's often considered the most accomplished in both prose style and approach to storytelling/ one critic said he was the terminus (the last stop, the ultimate iteration) of the balzacian novel.
He might not be the best for a start though, ewpecially in translation (though I have heard very good things about Moncrieff's translation).
Stendhal is probably the most accessible, and is also one of the most clever and enjoyable, of the great French realists. Balzac is a must, and not that much harder. I'd save Proust for last, as a reward and final challenge after all the build up.
After Balzac Flaubert is an obligatory stop and Zola, although not as necessary, is important. You have a lot of writers who didn't wrote huge ensembles of novels unlike Balzac or Zola, Maupassant being one of the more effortless.
So Stendhal -> Balzac -> Zola -> Flaubert-> Maupassant -> Proust I guess. As good as any order. Depending on how comprehensive you are in your reading that's up to more than 120 works on your backlog.
I am new on this board but I will be spending more time here while starting my own blog.
I am learning some fundamentals about writing and have read this great blog post bookoblivion.com
Unfortunately I could not figure out what the umbrella term of these three terms is.
To sum up my question: If I have a text with a narrative, a story and a plot, what do I have as a whole then?
>he has read books written in the 50s
Tale might be a more general word, though story is usually pretty general.
Thank you very much.
What books to take with you to live in the woods for indefinite amount of time?
The Bible.
Walden.
Finish With Skinner's Walden successor as a complementary dichotomy. Your views on civilization will change.
It’s strange for me to think of Proust as a French realist in the tradition of Balzac or Zola. It might be useful to have read them, but I’ve always found Proust’s incredibly wordy prose and extended digressions away from plot to be more in line with modernist writing rather than realist, even if the basic backdrop of the plot is well grounded in reality.
If you’re interested in reading Proust and you really feel the need to prepare yourself, I would recommend reading works of modernist literature such as Woolf. In terms of translation, obviously the original French would be best, but the Enright revision of the Moncrieff translation is probably the best translation work I’ve ever read in my life, so you’re not going to do badly with that at all.
Actually thinking about it now, it would be advisable to read some works of French realist writers, if only to get a sense of how different Proust’s writing truly is. But I don’t think much more than a few works by Balzac, Flaubert, or maybe Zola if you have the interest is necessary.
Why live?
Anyone going to listen to the radio adaption on BBC4 over the bank holiday weekend? Pretty excited for it desu
PROUST IS THE MOST SELF-CENTRED CUNT EVER PRODUCED BY ANY COUNTRY ANYWHERE IN ANY UNIVERSE.
NAVEL GAZING BAGUETTE. FUCK HIM.
>Stendhal et Proust
>Réalisme
Vertudieu, les mecs... !
>Zola before Flaubert and Proust
La honte.
Are there different versions of Petersburg by Andei Bely floating around? I just bought an edition that’s a bit above 300 pages, but some versions have over 600.
I don't like reading on a computer and I'm somewhat of a poorfag, is it a good idea to just get a pdf of a book and write it on paper myself so when I want to re-read it I don't have to use my computer?
Just save for a printer and print it out at home
I have a printer but printing 300 pages is going to cost more than buying the book.
Yes, Andrei Bely released a heavily revised version in 1922. It is far inferior to the original and I’d recommend you steer clear of it. Unfortunately, possibly the best translation of the work (Maguire and Malmstad) is of the revised version. I’d recommend the McDuff translation that Penguin publishes, it is the complete version, and it has some substantial endnotes which are very helpful for understanding the work.
Well shit, guess I’ll have to shell out for the longer version. Thanks for replying.
I'm and you're right that he is a modernist. But he also belongs (and quite self-consciously) to Balzac's lineage, so to speak. Iirc when his major work was first published everyone made the comparison. He was of course influenced also by foreign authors, notably Tolstoy.
Flaubert is more modern and more evolved so it makes sense, likewise for Proust. You start with the more conventional writer and later on tackle the more unconventional. Réfléchis un peu avant de poster mon nègre.
Realism is a rather wide label and there are certainly enough realist elements in Stendhal (not to mention his influence over realists proper) to include him. Or are you going to pretend you can embrace the unfolding of the French realist novel without Stendhal?
Same with Proust but on the other side. He's ultimately an accomplishment of the realist tradition. Anyway it's not like there is such a thing as a pure realist among 19th century French novelists, Balzac was at least half romantic, Hugo was full romantic, Flaubert was already modernist and had a strong poetical streak, and even Zola's descriptions are dripping with closeted fantastic imagery (in the sense of littérature fantastique). What is true for Zola is (in this case) also true for Maupassant, although he is much more subdued.
Unrelated but what do you think about sartre's novels and biographies, especially L'Idiot de la Famille?
Which word describes the whole spectrum of good and evil? What I mean is, for thick and thin when talking about people it's bodyfat. People with low bodyfat are thin and people with high bodyfat are thick. Or for objects it's width. Objects with low width are thin, objects with high width are thick.
So what's the word for x in people with low x are evil and people with high x are good?
ethicality
Funny how people rarely talk about Zola.
>reading a guy whose name is literally BallSack
lmao gay
He was like Stephen King writing two books every month, but talented.
>Read a letter a day.
>Spend ten or fifteen minutes twice a day reading a diary/journal/notebook.
>Read four to six aphorisms/maxims a day.
How would I fit in essays in my system? Should I treat them like letters or diaries/journals/notebooks?
I'm interested in listening to the Christopher Lee audio-book for Frankenstein. My only problem is that it is apparently an abridged version. Would anybody know if this version cuts out anything important like plot details/prose or if it just trims off insignificant things? I don't want to listen to a cliff notes version.
Was Bataille a structuralist? )Bataille reproached Monnerot for failing to properly address the meaning of the sacred and for abandoning two 'essential and solid' parts of Durkheim's doctrine: seeing society as a totality where the sum is more than its parts; and acknowledging that religion is the bond and constitutive element of 'everything that is society'.
Is there a guide to which editions to buy by author? Or at least one that covers most lit-core? I want to know specifically about: Lolita, Moby Dick, V. and Naked Lunch.
Also, has someone read William Carlos Williams? Anything to say about him? I'm interested since I watched Paterson
why is libgen down? is it coming back? what are the best alternatives? b-ok sucks, gutenberg sucks.
Go to a library? or save up for an e-reader, they're quite cheap.
Not that I know of per author, but it’s not too hard to figure out usually, just look into well regraded publishers. Oxford World Classics for example are some of the best paperback books out there. They’re well made, and they have extensive endnotes for almost everything they publish, which is useful when you’re first starting to get into reading. Penguin gets shit on a lot because they’re not very well made, but they’re often good as well in terms of notes. Other good publishers would be Vintage International, Modern Library, Everyman’s Library, Norton Critical Editions, New York Review Books, etc. But honestly don’t stress out about it too much. Just try to avoid Mass Market Paperbacks because they’re terribly made, get books with endnotes if you think you’ll be confused, and don’t get abridged versions of books ever.
But b-ok is incredible, I almost always find what I’m looking for there. Why do you think it sucks?
gen.lib.rus.ec
Thank you for the response. Im just looking to buy those books I mentioned and there's almost no difference in price between editions (theyll all be paperback for now), so I want to get the 'best' editions
It’s hard to say without knowing specifically which editions you’re looking at. Like for Moby Dick for example, the Norton Critical Edition and the Oxford World Classics editions are probably the best in terms of both quality and extra information, and they’re also fairly cheap and easy to find. The Signet Classics and Wordsworth Classics editions are pretty common as well but neither of those is great in my opinion.
Good, earnest, humble, question OP, but Proust is not a realist. In the last volume he has a specific several-page rant on realism being an awful approach to literature. He is about idealism, and in this particular instance against realism in literature he defends the method he employs throughout his entire ouvre: metaphor and analogy. In the same rant he says movies are not good art. Proust is THE BEST, though, and he is good with musicality, but he by no means relies on musicality. If you want to read someone who treats mankind's ideas in the broadest and deepest sense, read Proust. In fact, in that same volume I mentioned, near that same aside, he speaks on style being connected with meaning, and says that we can be confident in judging someone's thought by their style (cf. Schopenhauer, who Proust was HEAVILY inspired by). is a nice poster, but I don't see how anyone can rank Proust so low.
1. there's a review (apparently called "méthodes" and originally published in le mercure de france?) by valéry of a bréal book on semantics (supposedly on the second tome, p. 1453 of his compiled works published by bibliotèque de la pléiade) where he introduces ideas saussure would later develop in his own work. anyone know where i could get it in either english or spanish in whole? i've only found a fragment in spanish so far
2. there's a book by starobinski called "words upon words" that i know is on aaaaarg. could someone please upload it somewhere? if you know of any other book on the topic (saussure's work on "anagrams") that is significantly better, could you namedrop it for me? i know there's more but i'm not familiar with them, maybe wuw is obsolete?
3. someone suggested lautréamont used "verbal masks"; anagrams simply put, particularly with names. someone know where i can read more about this? there's a piece on this very thing by some leyla perrone-moisés but it's in portuguese
4. should i use calibre? i just read pdfs on my browser and it feels silly
5. would someone be my friend?
i've only read two of his poems, the icarus one and the plums (had to check, i remembered them as peaches) one. found the latter quite silly and agreeable, the first unremarkable but liked the theme. good reminder to check more of his
That helps. Also I've been told to buy the lips cover of Lolita, I forget the name of the publisher now
oestrogen?
I don't think it was a ranking, more an order that squares accessibility with chronology. I'd say fuck it, read one or two Balzacs, the one Maupassant, Flaubert, then Proust as the final step. Everything else is optional.
Zola is comfy desu
This is my Balzac plan: Lost Illusions, Cousin Bette, The Unknown Masterpiece. Pere Goroit, Eugenie Grandet, Seraphita, Splendors and Miseries of Courtesans, Therese Raquin, La Peau de Chagrin, Cousin Pons, Ursule Mirouët
Assuming I like his works of course, any additions/changes?
>In the last volume he has a specific several-page rant on realism being an awful approach to literature. He is about idealism, and in this particular instance against realism in literature he defends the method he employs throughout his entire ouvre
Based and redpilled. I thought I was the only one who hated realism.
Jesus Christ. You guys can't believe how much I hate realism and naturalism, this disgraceful genre dominated the literature in my country for almost a century.
Someone fucking explain Wittgenstein to me right now
Recommend books about an industrious young fellow working his way up through pre-1850s society, sort of like Great Expectations if it didn't suck.
I can only ever find PDFs in there
ah cool. thanks
With a focus on his journey to the top?
What should I read if I want to learn about the fall of Rome?
for the record I know jack shit about rome and history in general
ESL-fa/tg/uy here. How's this for a short description of my character for an upcoming game:
>Dwarf of regular stature. Body chiseled out of stone by a tireless barrage of campaigns, defeats and a few victories. A monumet, yet a wreck, a ruin. Of noble birth, by axe and sword and mace and leash crafted into something else. Something useful, something crude.
Complexion is that of ash, his eyes burn like cinders. Wrinkles cover the statuesque face, brows set in a perpetual frown, his soul full of indifference towards life. He reeks of dried blood, sweat and alcohol. The fiery beard, extravagantly braided, covered with thick rings and a hoard of foreign coins, a banner of his hollow victories. A feign atempt towards purpuse.
Start with the begining. Read Livius History of rome, some Appianus for battle porn, Marcus Aurelius Meditations for some feels, and finish it all with some Age of Empires
I'm trying to remember the term for like a dimension or something where all knowledge is stored outside of human minds but that could be accessed by them or something. I think it might have something to do with ancient Greek philosophy but I'm not sure.
The word is on the tip of my tongue and I can't for the life of me remember it. Does anyone know what I'm talking about?
The complete works of Plato and Aristotle
Complete essays of Michel De Montaigne
Plutarch's Lives and Moralia
Seneca's letters
Contra Gentiles
Stuff like hat. Those works alone are worth a lifetime study. For fiction I would take these since I could read them over and over again.
Don't Quixote
Lord of the Rings/Silmarillion
War and Peace
Anna Karenina
Brothers Karamazov
Led Miserables
Earth Abides
A Tale of Two Cities
great list of nonfiction works