/lit/ - Literature

ITT: shit tier required reading

What is your opinion about this book and author?

Has any of you guys read this book? thoughts?

>mfw no one ever contributes anything to the conversation and just circlejerk to talk about the same things over and over

Yeah, that's 4chan for you. Every other board has the very same problem - virtually zero thinking outside of the box except when it's a circlejerk where everybody feels that it's completely genuine and important.
Rarely is it so. Ignorance and a lack of consciousness prevails, something I'd not have predicted about the invention of the Internet, before it came to exist.
It's just more transparent here since there's no underlying rap like on /pol/ where it's about the jews, media, alternative media, bankers, Illuminati or what have you. Here on /lit/ it's about pseudo-intellectual, established interpretations of whatever type of literature people feel the need to "discuss" or "learn" from. They seldom get any new ideas out of their reading and, it's like they're just amusing themselves to death... or becoming more knowledgeable, which seems so fucking pointless without real discussions. Maybe that's why there's no philosophy board yet and so many screwballs gather around /pol/ and other places instead, to, well... I can't believe I'm actually typing this... to motivate/enlighten others.
"Without sounding too cliche, the Internet really is the birth of global mind."
"We are so much the victims of abstraction that with the Earth in flames we can barely rouse ourselves to wander across the room and look at the thermostat." -Terence McKenna

Pic fucking related, I've not seen it mentioned on this board.

How does /lit/ feel about Ishmael?

Recently read Ishmael. I'm all for the CONSERVATION of the environment, but goddamn this was just trying to indoctrinate people to bring the economy down in the name of nature.

Hey /lit/, what do you think of the book Ishmael and the philosophy behind it?

Hey /lit/, what do you think of this book and the philosophy behind it?

Since OP is clearly in high school -- where else would book-reading assignments be based on length? -- I'm going to recommend this.

OP might like the works of Daniel Quinn. Less edgy, yet more likely to fuck with your perception of society on a deeper level. Start with Ishmael. Enjoy the ride.

OP's pic is a fine choice. Pictured: my own recommendation.

Ishmael is pretty good entry-level reading for anybody interested in social or environmental issues. And a prisoner will find the discussion of human captivity especially relevant.

It's a relatively fast read but if your bro likes it then you can always send him Quinn's other novels too.

“Guess what? The Nazis didn't lose the war after all. They won it and flourished. They took over the world and wiped out every last Jew, every last Gypsy, black, East Indian, and American Indian. Then, when they were finished with that, they wiped out the Russians and the Poles and the Bohemians and the Moravians and the Bulgarians and the Serbians and the Croatians--all the Slavs. Then they started in on the Polynesians and the Koreans and the Chinese and the Japanese--all the peoples of Asia. This took a long, long time, but when it was all over, everyone in the world was one hundred percent Aryan, and they were all very, very happy.

"Naturally the textbooks used in the schools no longer mentioned any race but the Aryan or any language but German or any religion but Hitlerism or any political system but National Socialism. There would have been no point. After a few generations of that, no one could have put anything different into the textbooks even if they'd wanted to, because they didn't know anything different.

"But one day, two young students were conversing at the University of New Heidelberg in Tokyo. Both were handsome in the usual Aryan way, but one of them looked vaguely worried and unhappy. That was Kurt. His friend said, 'What's wrong, Kurt? Why are you always moping around like this?' Kurt said, 'I'll tell you, Hans. There is something that's troubling me--and troubling me deeply.' His friend asked what it was. 'It's this,' Kurt said. 'I cannot shake the crazy feeling that there is some small thing that we're being lied to about.' And that's how the paper ended."

Ishmael nodded thoughtfully. "And what did your teacher think of that?"

"He wanted to know if I had the same crazy feeling as Kurt. When I said I did, he wanted to know what I thought we were being lied to about. I said, 'How could I know? I'm no better off than Kurt.'"

>>3490360
If you want to see some of these ideas dressed up better, then Google the PDF for Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. I think you'll find his discussion of the peoples he calls Takers and Leavers far more enlightening than the onscreen drama between the space-faring humans and the Na'vi.

For any of you who have already Quinn:
You are now aware that Humanity Fuck Yeah stories are really Takers Fuck Yeah stories.

>>3476197
You'd probably get a kick out of Daniel Quinn, if you haven't read him already. He started with the same existential angst as Zappfe (WTF is wrong with humanity, amirite?) but developed startlingly different conclusions about the causes and remedies for that angst.

Excerpt from the pictured novel that put Quinn on the literary map:

"There's nothing fundamentally wrong with people. Given a story to enact that puts them in accord with the world, they will live in accord with the world. But given a story to enact that puts them at odds with the world, as yours does, they will live at odds with the world. Given a story to enact in which they are the lords of the world, they will act as the lords of the world. And, given a story to enact in which the world is a foe to be conquered, they will conquer it like a foe, and one day, inevitably, their foe will lie bleeding to death at their feet, as the world is now."

Either 10/10 or 0/10, depending on the reader. People either love this book or cut a hole through it so they can hatefuck it. I've seen very few 'meh' responses.

>>3427598
OP here. Payments in kind are all that I ask for. Get your ass to vocaroo and read something cool. This could become the best thread on /lit/ if more people like you step to the mic.

>>3427588
>>3427629
Thank you, anons.


Since I'm bumping, I may as well contribute again. Here's a longer passage from the same book, in which the narrator and Ishmael are discussing the mythological narrative of progress that drives modern civilization, the hefty price we have paid, and the reasons we give for why progress is so often thwarted.

http://vocaroo.com/i/s0iZO6T3KazL

God-tier reads/ Strong recommendations.

Is this book worth reading?
What are /lit/'s opinions on it?

>>2531457
Not a troll. I know the zodiac thing was ridiculous. Not quite sure why, but I thought /lit/ was a bit whacky like /x/... which was why I mentioned it.

>>2531471
This is what I've been doing, but I don't want to end up reading some juicy magazine stand-type of tell-all that was written for simple working mothers. (Every time I see a 4.5 star rating on Amazon I immediately suspect these women as the raving reviewers...) I want an honest story of an extraordinary life that wasn't motivated by fame or money, preferably written with someone with an English sense of humor/wit.

I don't know what's troll-ish about my interests. It's probably because you guys have never met a business student before. I'm also female, and wasn't exposed to YA but haven't read enough of the classics to be a true literate citizen, I guess. Being an effective communicator is key to being successful in my line of work, but I feel I'm not articulate as I should be as a writer. I also tend to be a bit reserved, instead of competitive... and want to sort of learn about the qualities that make people charismatic/outspoken.

Pic related. I usually read this sort of 'big picture' stuff, but it gives me the feeling like I'm too detached from the present.

...
All that rambling, and I probably still didn't describe well enough what I'm looking for.

>>1838457
Alright. Pic related. We could also talk about John Zerzan and other prominent thinkers, if you'd like. If you have nothing to contribute, feel free to hide the thread.

This. You see the world in an entirely different way after reading it, whether you agree or not with Quinn's ideas.