/lit/ - Literature

>>16637471
Njal's Saga
The Death of Arthur
The Orchard Keeper
The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

>>16637471
Why are some works bolded and in red font?

>>16637486
It's a software called roam research. Those are hyperlinks to other nested pages where I have notes on them. Why some have notes and not all of them? I'm just kinda lazy. I set up the system and don't go back to it as much as I should.

>Ulysses (again)
>Consider the Lobster
>Tao te Ching
>Howl
>White Noise
>A Supposedly Fun Thing...
>Alice in Wonderland

I started the New Science but I have little brain

>>16637514
Ah, that explains it.
As for the works you've read, what's the logic behind it? There's a varied mixture of stuff here. Do you read what you find interesting or are you following some pattern? Why did you read so little fiction? Also, we're ten months into this year yet you overall haven't read that much (especially when you consider that works like Ion and Poetics are pretty short). How often do you read? Have you started reading recently maybe? Do you have some other hobbies beside this?

>>16637669
I was kinda distracted studying for the bar exam and figuring out how to pay the bills, so reading wasn't my top priority. And as for what I chose to read, it was kinda a mixture between what I have on my shelves and what's short enough to feel satisfactory, and what's been memed. So really no real rhyme or reason except for in the moment I felt like it would be a good idea to read it. I've started the first 30 pages of about twenty books this year, but I always seem to lose interest or get distracted. As far as fiction goes, I'm not sure. I did get about 300 pages into infinite jest so far and some of Dubliners. Perhaps TV and movies fill whatever void I'd be seeking with fiction. I'm not actually sure.

>>16637834
You shouldn't start books and then drop them after 30 pages, at least I think that you should always finish what you started.
>TV and movies
Excellent stuff, although only if you know what to watch and not waste your time with bad stuff.

>>16637471
Some books

>>16637923
I suppose its less of dropping books and more of getting distracted by other books when I do set aside the time to read. Like a kid in a candy shop that can't choose just one. A movie or a TV show is so easy to finish in comparison. It's so passive. Now that the exam is over I'll be trying to finish things.

>>16637960
>TV show
>easier to finish
I wouldn't say that, unless the show has only one season or something, and even then it takes as much time to watch it as to read a 300 page book for example.

>>16637514
>roam research
>not using obsidian
NGMI

>>16637923
Some books don't speak to people. I would never have read Ethan Frome, and I would have put it down if I wasnt forced to read it for school. Now almost two decades later it is still my least favorite book of all time. Plus, when you do the math out you get around 4800 books to read in your entire life (assuming you are reading 70 books a year for 65 years) give or take. Why force yourself to read ones that don't speak to you unless you are absolutely forced to.

>>16637951

Two 1400+ page books. Big swinging dick right here.

Also, interesting list. I am going to take a look at a few of these.

>>16638001
I see where you're coming from, but I'd argue that books which had importance (in influencing some author, a movement etc.) should be read even if you dislike them, at least if you want to get a better picture of things that the work influenced. It doesn't matter if the influence was deserving or not, what matters is that it was influental. If you don't take reading very seriously and just want to read what you enjoy, you can read works relatively detached from influences of the classics (e.g. most of the modern stuff), but I'm not really sure I would want to be like that. It would be like being interested in only playing games for mobile phones and other casual stuff instead of delving deeper and experiencing stuff like ICO, Planescape: Torment, Deus Ex etc.
A lot of the worthy works were influenced in one way or another. I wouldn't want to read Dostoevsky without also checking out Gogol (who influenced him) and Nietzsche (who he influenced).

>>16638035
Song of Solomon was fantastic until the last 5 pages. I read the first five pages of Armies of the Night, and I dont think i can take a whole book of norman mailer talking about himself as the protagonist of a novel in third person.

>>16637975
I mean, easier to consume. It's a passive activity kinda thing.
>>16637988
Tell me more please. I don't want to have to start paying for roam. I didn't know about obsidian.

The Tartar Steppe
Candide
The Hedgehog and the Fox
The Drowned World
The Black Swan
Solaris
The Misbehavior of Markets
Roadside Picnic
Fooled by Randomness

>>16637482
based Brennu Njáls Saga reader
i keep posting about germanic philology and the icelandic sagas to try and get other people into the subject because i feel like i'm the only person who knows them sometimes

>>16637471
Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean from the Rise of Islam to 1750
Edgework: Essays on Knowledge and Politics
Dusklands
The Notebooks of Malte Laurids-Brigge
Triangulum
Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism's Stealth Revolution
Pond
From Noose to Needle: Capital Punishment and the Late Liberal State
Asia before Europe: Economy and Civilization in the Indian Ocean from the Rise of Islam to 1750
A Hidden History of Film Style: Cinematographers, Directors, and the Collaborative Process
Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, and Modernity
Vineland
Zama
Suder
Mason & Dixon
Beyond Good and Evil (trans. Judith Norman)
Nietzsche and Philosophy (trans. Hugh Tomlinson)
Youth
Fugitive Democracy
The Limeworks
Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, The
Monsters to Destory: Understanding the War on Terror
Mansfield Selected Stories (Oxford UP)
Men and Apparitions
Academic Capitalism: Politics, Policies, and the Entrepreneurial University
Mutual Funds: Portfolio Structures, Analysis, Management, and Stewardship
Crime and Punishment (trans. Volchonsky)
New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis
The Brothers Karamazov
The Adventures of Augie March
The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power
Understanding the Sick and Healthy: A View of World, Man, and God (trans. Nahum Glatzer)
Wilhlem Meister's Apprenticeship (trans. Thomas Carlyle)
Waiting for the Barbarians
Haunted by Chaos: China's Grand Strategy from Mao Zedong to Xi Jingping
Dubliners
Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
From the Closed World the the Infinite Universe
Chicago on the Make: Wealth and Inequality in a Global City

>>16638103
Þat ertu ekki.

>>16638139
i'm hoping i meet more people who're into this once i go for a phd in germanic philology specifically rather than german linguistics in general
rn the only people i know who i talk about this stuff with are my professors

>>16638032
Not him but while the general idea is noble certain areas are of no interest to certain people and so they see no reason to interact with them because of how completely different the baseline assumptions and systems are between the reader and the author (this is also why I believe certain threads on this board end up being colossal exercises in little other than shitflinging because the two parties are operating on completely different axioms without ever caring to address this). That and I must remind you that no book is 'magical', a person who is unable, in a given period of time, to get anything out of a work of classic literature or philosophy is making strides, yes, but isn't getting out of the work what he could be. Some are of course completely incapable of seeing value in certain texts, especially ones which are vague or more spiritual than others. Not everyone can develop the eyes necessary to see something's true worth. Also,
>mentioning video games, and the usual suspects even
Highly amusing

>>16638162
>phd in germanic philology
I'm probably going for that as well, still in HS right now though.
If you're interested there are many good discord servers for the discussion of these topics.

>>16637471
No offense dude but you're a faggot

>>16638162
>>16638139
>>16638103
https://sagadb.org/

Ive almost finished the whole database. Njal's was by far my favorite, although Egil Skallagrimsson is my favorite character. Undset really keeps the feels in master of hestviken

>>16638188
>a person who is unable, in a given period of time, to get anything out of a work of classic literature or philosophy is making strides, yes, but isn't getting out of the work what he could be
Of course, I agree that the reader himself is the most important factor, just because someone read e.g. 1000 books doesn't mean that he is as good as someone who read 200 books albeit with a better mindset than his. The works have to be interpreted, after all.
>Some are of course completely incapable of seeing value in certain texts, especially ones which are vague or more spiritual than others. Not everyone can develop the eyes necessary to see something's true worth.
Yeah, but the problem is in determining those people. Someone can always say that person X hasn't tried hard enough or that his viewpoint is actually correct, yet you can't engage with the latter point through anything empirical, which is probably the most valued thing in today's society.
>Highly amusing
What's more amusing is your disapproval of the same, unless I misunderstood the meaning of your words.

>>16638193
i should look into that
i have a year left of my undergrad, after that i think i'll apply directly to a phd
not gonna make any money really obviously, but i don't need much to live
>>16638209
sagadb is good, sometimes i also use heimskringla for the texts
i obviously prefer hard copies though

>>16638198
None taken. I know. Wish I had better taste and a stronger sense of fortitude.

Currently reading DoW and I'm planning on reading the Oresteia and the Theban plays in December

>>16638063
https://obsidian.md/

>>16638432
Based anon

>>16637471
Haven't read many books, desu. I've read some documents and heard the last ten audiobooks of the Horus Heresy/Siege of Terra, but no proper books. I have read some game books though, from TES.

>example:
https://www.imperial-library.info/content/battle-red-mountain

1. A Time to Keep Silence by Patrick Leigh Fermor
2. A German Officer in Occupied Paris: The War Journals 1941-1945 by Ernst Junger
3. The Adventures or Augie March by Saul Bellow
4. In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin
5: Round Ireland in Low Gear by Eric Newby
6. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
7. Nazi Literature in the Americas by Roberto Bolano
8. The Last Tycoon by F. Scott Fitzgerald
9. On the Marble Cliffs by Ernst Junger
10. The Blind Owl by Sadegh Hedayat
11. A King Alone by Jean Giono
12. Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis
13. Troubles by J. G. Farrell
14. A Bend in the River by V. S. Naipaul
15. Loving by Henry Green
16. Oliver Cromwell by C. V. Wedgwood
17. Another Day of Life by Ryszard Kapuscinski
18. Butcher’s Crossing by John Williams
19. Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan
20. The Third Reich by Roberto Bolano
21. The Urban Crucible: The Northern Seaports and the Origins of the American Revolution by Gary Nash
21. Nine Stories by J. D. Salinger
22. A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes
23. The Last Grain Race by Eric Newby
24. Arabia Felix: The Danish Expedition of 1761-1767
25. The Leopard by Giuseppe Lampedusa
26. Hitch-22 by Christopher Hitchens
27. Zona: A Book About a Film About a Journey to a Room by Geoff Dyer
28. Ghost and Horror Stories of Ambrose Bierce by Ambrose Bierce

Currently reading The Hill of Dreams by Arthur Machen

36 (Lecture Books: 1)

Suttree - Cormac McCarthy

Can Life Prevail? - Pentii Linkola

Crying Of Lot 49 - Thomas Pynchon

Weight Of Three Thousand Years - Israel Shakak

Ship Of Fools - Tucker Carlson

Introduction To The Study Of The Hindu Doctrines - Rene Guenon

East & West - Rene Guenon

Crisis Of The Modern World - Rene Guenon

Apology, Symposium - Plato

The Bhagavad Gita

The Divine Comedy
(Inferno)
(Purgatorio)
(Paradiso) - Dante Alighieri

The Esoterism Of Dante - Rene Guenon

Insights Into Islamic Esoterism & Taoism - Rene Guenon

Orthodoxy - G.K. Chesterton

The Reign Of Quantity & The Signs Of The Times - Rene Guenon

Beyond Good & Evil - Friedrich Nietzsche

Political Theology - Carl Schmitt

Spinoza, Practical Philosophy - Gilles Deleuze

Venus In Furs - Leopold Masoch

Anthropomorphics - Adam Katz

Critique Of Pure Reason - Immanuel Kant (JDE Lecture Series)

Myths, Gods, Machines: Illuminations On Mythology, History, and Science - John David Ebert

Metamorphosis Of Plants - Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Hypermoderninity And The End Of The World - John David Ebert

The Lost Weekend- Charles Jackson

A Canticle For Leibowitz - Walter H Miller Jr

Hyperion - Dan Simmons

Siddhartha - Herman Hesse

Stoner - John Edward Williams

The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka

The Holy Bible: Genesis

The Holy Bible: Exodus

A World Apart - Gustaw Herling-Grudziński

Stories I Tell Myself - Juan Thompson

The Holy Bible: The Book Of Joshua

>>16638211
Not necessarily interpretation so much as proper understanding which is likely the most crucial thing one can get out of a good book. As you say it isn't always easy to determine who can and who cannot access certain levels of wisdom and there's certainly no empirical way to prove that one or the other party is correct if one is knee deep in the occult and the other considers it utterly farcical, that would be ridiculous. Nevertheless I am certain there are ways to determine this after one acquires enough wisdom and understanding for oneself or by adopting the right mindset when dealing with such matters, and while it might seem unfair on the surface elitism and the sentiment that some are truly hopeless is a common trait not only in aristocratic circles or bygone places of higher learning but in more than a few sects and religious groups.
Yes I'm not a particular fan of video games since I find their inherent nature as creations that arise from a set of highly specific programming rules and general logical constraints a detriment that has exceedingly high influence on one's experience of them which is why their only recourse is to try as much as possible to strengthen immersion in order to hide as well as possible their own highly mechanistic nature. Some believe that their existence as amalgams provides a counterbalance and this I can only regard as blind faith in excess.

>>16638712
>Nevertheless I am certain there are ways to determine this after one acquires enough wisdom and understanding for oneself or by adopting the right mindset when dealing with such matters, and while it might seem unfair on the surface elitism and the sentiment that some are truly hopeless is a common trait not only in aristocratic circles or bygone places of higher learning but in more than a few sects and religious groups.
I don't mind elitism, I think that it's needed in every sphere, but the problem is how to determine what's right and what's not.
>as creations that arise from a set of highly specific programming rules and general logical constraints a detriment that has exceedingly high influence on one's experience of them
Literature has constraints as well, as does anything else. If anything, video games can offer more freedom in their approach than anything else in the other mediums if it's designed correctly (a high amount of variety in approaches, e.g. having many different ways of beating a stage and having such varied items that replays can feel really fresh).
>which is why their only recourse is to try as much as possible to strengthen immersion in order to hide as well as possible their own highly mechanistic nature
Again, video games aren't the only thing that have a mechanistic nature, and if anything, they give the most freedom because of interaction not just in a psychical sense (interpreting the thing you're experiencing, in this example specifically a video game you're playing) but a physical one as well, so to call it (choosing where you will go etc.), at least if we're talking about non-linear games (and even then no two playthroughs of a 2D platformer can be completely the same). Now, people love to make fun of this and bring up "choose your own adventure" books as an counterexample, but the simple fact is that the freedom in those types of books doesn't compare to freedom in a well-designed video game, even those that some compare to a "choose your own adventure" book e.g. Planescape: Torment since in the latter you have to explore on your own, deduct certain things and so on as opposed to coming to a spot that says "choose whether you'll go to thing A or thing B".
As for strenghtening the immersion, people don't agree on how that's to be done, as people think different accents should be put on different things (gameplay, story and so on). I think that each aspect has to be satisfying enough and everything to be a solid, coherent whole. I can't say that I've played many video games which do this, but when done correctly (e.g. Gothic 1), the result is outstanding.
1/2

>>16638712
>>16638760
I don't mind games purely focused on gameplay (e.g. arcade stuff), but I realize that it's not a popular stance, especially when you consider people think for something to be high art it has to enrichen you in an intellectual sense (although they still refuse to then say that most of music isn't high art either since you don't learn anything through listening to it).
>Some believe that their existence as amalgams provides a counterbalance and this I can only regard as blind faith in excess
Counterbalance for what? Can you also elaborate on what you mean by that belief being blind faith in excess?

2/2

>>16638712
>Yes I'm not a particular fan of video games since I find their inherent nature as creations that arise from a set of highly specific programming rules and general logical constraints a detriment that has exceedingly high influence on one's experience of them which is why their only recourse is to try as much as possible to strengthen immersion in order to hide as well as possible their own highly mechanistic nature. Some believe that their existence as amalgams provides a counterbalance and this I can only regard as blind faith in excess.
This is 100% true, and I wish I could stop playing them.

>>16638760
>>16638774
You are correct in that every artform has its constraints, the difference however is that video games are not only the most recent media available to us but are also as a result the most dependent on technology and technology is based on a certain set of principles and rules that simply are not 1:1 with the constraints and rules of literature, poetry or what are called the plastic arts (painting and sculpture most notably), so literature is obviously constrained by language and poetry by language, melody and meter but these constraints are not of the same nature as those that apply for video games where interactivity is vital, when interactivity is vital but the world itself is heavily constrained by the will of the programmers and by what the technology itself allows there is the possibility of playing around or with the constraints in order to try and achieve higher quality how artists and creators in other media have also been doing for many many years, but being so dependent on technology inevitably means the constraints keep changing in a way that allows more and more and would eventually (or so it is hoped) eliminate constraints entirely, which is why VR is often emphasized by various individuals. Because the industry has to continually work with advances in technology and any attempts to go back to something simpler often end up feeling like someone's personal nostalgia wish fulfillment that rarely ever does anything new with the medium, one can only conclude that the technology available are the very rules around which the creators have to continuously play. Technology unlike language or melody or material is often thought of as endlessly progressing, endlessly changing and is most importantly mechanical and 'rationalistic', so a game's mechanics have to play a highly important role and yet can only be represented through numerical values or similar tactics which actively devalue the things they are based on. Some find this acceptable, the sorts that think all life is a game anyway, but I cannot find good sense in it any more. This ties into what I said at the end, as some people are of the opinion that the combination of various other artforms and the possibility of stimulating multiple senses makes up for the limiting nature of games. The end result of this is likely VR, which would theoretically allow for maximal sensual stimulation and the highest degree of immersion. It is blind faith in excess simply because I am not of the 'maximalist' belief that more is better, and while there are again in theory possibilities for all the various elements of a game to work perfectly in tandem with one another, more often than not each aspect suffers by having to share the stage (osome might argue each aspect ends up being as perfect as it can be for the circumstances, that is to say a game's story is trash and can not be fixed if it were made into a novel precisely because a story that bad can only be thought of for a game)

>>16639064
>so literature is obviously constrained by language and poetry by language, melody and meter but these constraints are not of the same nature as those that apply for video games
I agree, for example it's easier to simply create a complex world through text in literature than to program it into a video game (the key word being "a complex world", so I'm not talking about a high quality complex world, just a complex world in general; it's easier to write down a fantasy than to put it into a video game). Still, I don't see why you consider these specific limitations such a problem.
>and yet can only be represented through numerical values or similar tactics which actively devalue the things they are based on
The game does have to have numerical values, not only when it comes to coding but also when it comes to some other things (e.g. stats in an RPG), but I don't see how this devalues the work. You technically can look at an RPG like a series of program codes, like a carefully crafted limitation which requires you to watch out for specific numbers like your HP, but why would you look at it like that unless you're talking about coding? By this logic, books are devalued as well since we can look at them as being limitations of the language (what can be conveyed by it), the letters (every word the book consists of is made up of letters, just like the video game is made through coding) etc.
>precisely because a story that bad can only be thought of for a game
More like because it fits with the other aspects of the game e.g. the gameplay, the audio and so on, since to just isolate the story itself would make for a poor and short book (excepting RPGs).
What is your idea of an actually good game? You seem to focus on immersion, which I understand, but do you think it can only be achieved through VR? Technically it can, at least if we're talking about the senses, but you need to feel it in a mental way as well. Look at it like this - will you feel more immersed in a VR game which has a very shitty world or a non-VR game which has excellent world design? Also, what's the problem with a medium depending on technology? The same can be said of movies.

>>16637471
Feb 2: The Idiot - Dostoyevsky - 614
Feb 7: Dr. Edith Vane and the Hares of Crawley Hall - Suzette Mayr - 203
Feb 19: Down Girl - Kate Manne - 307
Feb 27: Against Nature - Joris-Karl Huysmans - 197
Feb 27: On The Genealogy of Morals (reread) - Friedrich Nietzsche - 164
March 2: Altered Carbon - Richard Morgan - 470
April 1: Assuming a Body: Transgender and Rhetorics of Materiality - Gayle Salamon - 193
April 3: Beyond Selflessness: Reading Nietzsche's Genealogy - Christopher Janaway - 267
April 23: Five Lectures on Psychoanalysis - Freud - 63
April 25: Waiting for the Barbarians - J.M Coetzee - 170
April 27: Child of God - Cormac McCarthy - 200
May 2: The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake - Breece D'J Pancake - 186
May 4: Their Eyes were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston - 193
May 5: Copenhagen - Michael Frayn - 94
May 10: The Shock Doctrine - Naomi Klein - 561
May 13: When Prophecy Fails - Leon Festinger - 233
May 15: How to Read and Why - Harold Bloom - 283
May 20: Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center - Bell Hooks - 166
May 21: A Cyborg Manifesto - Donna Harraway - 68
May 27: White Noise - Don Delilo - 326
June 12: Moby-Dick - Herman Melville - 625
June 24: The Wretched of the Earth - Frantz Fanon - 251
June 30: The Heart of a Dog - Mikhail Bulgakov - 123
July 5: The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner - 281
July 7: Gender Trouble - Judith Butler - 203
July 9: The Crying of Lot 49 - Thomas Pynchon - 152 - Re-read
July 16: East of Eden - John Steinbeck - 601
July 26: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain - 307
August 1: Manhattan Transfer - John Dos Passos - 404
August 4: A Farewell to Arms - Ernest Hemmingway - 349
August 7: The Black Jacobins - CLR James - 369
August 18: Tender is the Night - F. Scott Fitzgerald - 303
August 21: Beloved - Toni Morrison - 324
August 27: Absalom! Absalom! - William Faulkner - 303
September 6: Mortal Engines - Stanislaw Lem - 281
September 9: V. - Thomas Pynchon - 492
September 11: The Periodic Table - Primo Levi - 232
September 12: Beyond Oil - Muhammad Rumaihi - 142
September 19: Achilles in Vietnam - Johnathan Shay - 210
September 24: Silent Spring - Rachel Carson - 300
September 26: Slow Death by Rubber Duck - Rick Smith & Bruce Lourie - 290
September 30: Phenomenology of Perception - Maurice Merleau-Ponty - 483

I keep it all written down in a note on my phone. Decided to do pages as well this year but idk how I feel about it. I started too many books at once in October so i haven't finished anything this month yet.

>>16637951
Where do you get this page on GR with 'num pages'?

>>16639149
based and trannypilled

53 books so far

>>16639182
>trannypilled
what did he mean by this

>>16639223
>April 1: Assuming a Body: Transgender and Rhetorics of Materiality - Gayle Salamon - 193
I respect people who read almost 200 pages on this topic

>>16639227
he doesn't have to be trannypilled just because he reads a work on the topic of trannies, just like someone who reads das capital isn't automatically a marxist

I don't belong on this board.

>>16638113
Quite the list. Best work of fiction? Best work of nonfiction?

>>16639235
>because he reads a work on the topic of trannies
>July 7: Gender Trouble - Judith Butler - 203
this was obviously meant as a joke btw but you don't seem to like it, are you an actual tranny?

>>16638538
Was Hitch-22 good?

>>16639123
It's true that one can reduce everything to the barest minimum elements, and I absolutely do not condone reductionism. The main problem comes up, I surmise, in the different way symbols are handled between the mediums, as in a book the individual letters and words may not have meaning but once one learns a language he can instinctively scan the contents and interpret the symbols themselves while visual mediums and the like are able to use recordings or representations of objects and people without the use of any language which is meant to describe said objects and people. In a video game since mechanics are king this often leads to a sort of devaluing of the elements in my mind. In a novel or a poem a tree may have more than a single possible meaning within the greater context but it is nevertheless a group of symbols which represents a tree and thus is able to capture the fullness of what a tree is. In a video game it is all too easy to have a tree and be immediately able to identify it as, most often, one of two things: a background prop that one can not meaningfully interact with, or something one can interact with in order to obtain some sort of mechanistic benefit. You would never represent someone's health, strength or speed in real life through purely numerical terms but in a video game you have no other way as it would not be possible to incorporate into the overall mechanics which require you to follow their explicit rules both for play and for how to set up the mechanics themselves.
I focused a decent amount on immersion because there is a certain individual often shilled around these parts who also greatly emphasizes immersion, and while I don't find him particularly intelligent he does seem to be at least partially on the right course with that manner of thinking. The VR problem you bring up is of course one of the major roadblocks since VR too must inevitably bend the knee to what technology allows, but if we reach a point where it is able to allow enough to create a fully immersive VR experience, I won't say that humanity will recede into a fantasy land but that is an unfortunate possibility. The main problem I would have with technology is that a) movies are also only possible thanks to tech but are less dependent on it and b) as mentioned it is purely the offspring of a mechanical 'rationalistic' mindset, which thus places constraints of a similar nature on all it produces, and I find that to be in a less than amiable relationship with artistic endeavor.

>>16639245
>are you an actual tranny
no

>>16637471
poetry

>>16637514
isnt roam expensive as fuck? how do you like it? I use evernote for reading notes and shit

>>16639257
>In a novel or a poem a tree may have more than a single possible meaning within the greater context but it is nevertheless a group of symbols which represents a tree and thus is able to capture the fullness of what a tree is. In a video game it is all too easy to have a tree and be immediately able to identify it as, most often, one of two things: a background prop that one can not meaningfully interact with, or something one can interact with in order to obtain some sort of mechanistic benefit
This is mostly a hyperbole, since a novel can't be THAT open for interpretation, or at least not in most of the cases. As for poetry, I do agree that it's way more open (yet not in all cases). Also, I still don't see how "mechanistic benefit" differs from a benefit that the tree would have (literally or as a symbol) in the author's work. What's bugging you about this? If you're lusting for ambiguity in interpretation, you could read postmodernist stuff, or play some absurdistic video games which don't have a clear plot and are open for interpretation (e.g. Space Funeral).
>You would never represent someone's health, strength or speed in real life through purely numerical terms but in a video game you have no other way as it would not be possible to incorporate into the overall mechanics which require you to follow their explicit rules both for play and for how to set up the mechanics themselves
Yes, but what's so bad about this? You technically have health in real life as well, even if it's not represented by a number. The HP representation (and other numerical representations) are there for things to be easier, since it can be said that in real life you have limits as well, it's just not spelled to us outright except in extreme cases where e.g. you can compare someone being shot multiple times as someone who has almost zero HP, so to say.
>because there is a certain individual often shilled around these parts
Who?
>I won't say that humanity will recede into a fantasy land but that is an unfortunate possibility
It will recede into a fantasy land, but that's because of nihilism and hedonism, not the technology itself which could be used for better purposes. Also, no one is stopping you from experiencing a quality video game instead of an escapist one (the latter being more about immersing you to the point of forgeting the world around you, wasting your time with mundane tasks etc.).
>movies are also only possible thanks to tech but are less dependent on it
Why do you think this? Technology is needed to realize some movie scenarios that have a grand scale.
1/2

>>16638445
ok but how do you use obsidian? could you post screen shots of it?

>>16639390
I got in on roam when it was in beta and free and never gave them my credit card info. I have yet to be charged, or, I don't think I've been charged. I should probably figure that out. How do I still have access?

>>16639257
>>16639468
>as mentioned it is purely the offspring of a mechanical 'rationalistic' mindset, which thus places constraints of a similar nature on all it produces, and I find that to be in a less than amiable relationship with artistic endeavor
Again, I don't see what's bad about this specific type of limitation as opposed to the one in e.g. literature. I understand why you want things to be open for interpretation, after all it's good to discuss meaning of some piece of art, but it's not bad if you have a more definitive meaning. The problem with video games is whether or not the games which focus almost completely on the gameplay (e.g. arcade stuff and 16-bit titles) can be high art. If we claim that high art only relates to works which stimulate us intellectually in a sense of giving us new thoughts to ponder, educating us on something (as for example we can learn about certain things when reading Thucydides' "History of the Peloponnesian War") and so on, then those kinds of games cannot be high art, and since most of the games are like this (excluding RPGs, point and click games, VNs and so on), then most of the medium as a whole is a failure.
2/2

Based on memory... may be some im forgetting.

>>16637471
Can't be bothered to post them because I'm only going to ask for some help here. Basically, been well into reading this year, have finished just over fifty now, I'd say around 90% of them I've at least liked, but I've not finished a single book for over a month now. It's not like I've completely given up, I've read the opening pages of Lord Jim, Gargantua & Pantagruel, Amerika, and this one makes me really ashamed since Kafka is literally my favourite author, Faraon and I gave up three hundred pages into a re-read of Don Quixote, even though I was enjoying it a whole lot more than I did the first time round. I've just got no drive to read, and more recently no focus when I'm reading. I couldn't even manage a fucking Edgar Allan Poe short story today. What a disgrace. Anyways, lads, got any fuckin epic top tips or hidden secrets to help get me back on track with me reading, cause fucking honestly for the past week or so the only things that have managed to hold my attention for more than like twenty minutes are the Melville films with Alain Delon in them.

>>16639619
>the Melville films with Alain Delon in them.
very good taste anon (also good /lit/ taste)
I don't really know what to say to you but it seems to me like literature isn't the only problem at hand here. I don't know anything about you but your post reads like you might be depressed or something. If you feel this is right, try to talk to someone about it. Otherwise don't put too much pressure on yourself, I sometimes don't read for weeks and it comes back naturally after a while.

>>16637471
>pic
essential commiecore

>>16637471
God I read freakonomics two years ago and it is so dated

>>16639642
I haven’t had a Lenin phase yet, so I’m not quite there, anon.
>>16639665
Yeah, I was using it more for practicing speed reading and to get it off my shelf. I suppose parts of it were kinda neat, but looking it up later it was fun to see how everyone had such problems with it.

dune
infinite jest
the crying of lot 49
the plague
decent amount of plato
stoner
butchers crossing

>>16637471
NOTHING
Can't read anymore, too bored of the same old gibberish ideas written on paper. After I've read Dostoevsky 2 years ago (all his writings) I got really bored.
Disappointed in the Greeks as well. I just can't be fucked anymore to read anything.
I only read 4chinkz threads on high autism and feel better by comparison, what do?

>>16639468
>>16639507
A tree in a poem has no 'benefit', not utilitarian at the very least while a tree in a mechanistic system which offers mechanistic benefit exists purely for the purposes of that benefit you get from interacting with it. The bad part about the quantification is that it is quantification as directly opposed to qualification and the fact that reality (or what's left of it if you'd rather) is not so easily quantifiable, within those constraints of the medium you are forced to represent things quantitatively because that is how the technology is able to interpret the data necessary to build up the virtual environment. As a dilettante it merely seems to me that such necessities will have less than savory consequences on people and the way they interpret and come to understand phenomena. I also feel it is disingenuous to deny that technology is to a greater or lesser extent related to the modern overabundance of "nihilism and hedonism", as both are made easier through mass communication and the overwhelming amount of available media and information. A movie can be filmed without much trouble using sets which do not necessarily need to utilize high-end tech and actors are still most often played by real people. The camera brought about its own fair share of innovations and changes but it is not a fully virtual environment coded into and thoroughly made up of/entrenched in the laws of a modern machine. I don't think intellectual stimulation is necessarily only done through the introduction of new ideas to play around with but I do feel like the cold calculating nature of a machine does make things more difficult when looked at from an aesthetic perspective. Similarly due to the amalgam point I mentioned I do not think that RPGs or similar games are able to have high quality stories, since they aren't the absolute focus and are framed by the visuals music etc. Visual novels arguably shouldn't count as video games to begin with and their name would suggest as much.
Now anon this has been enjoyable but I must remind you that we have strayed heavily off topic and should be careful not to flood the thread more than we already have.

>>16638445
God bless anon. I was just getting started on Zettelkasten (and mapping out my thoughts) and although I've heard of it I never got around to trying. Best I've tried yet.

>>16638551
based canticle

>>16639764
I'd respond to some of your points but as you said, we strayed heavily off topic. Thanks for the conversation, your take is a pretty unique one that I haven't seen in the "can video games be high art" discussion.

>>16637471
Ive read:
Hopscotch x2
The Savage Detectives x2
2666
Songs of a dead dreamer
some other shit but I lost the will to give a shit

>>16639873
No problem, it was an interesting exchange.

>>16639634
>you might be depressed
Is it? Idk I wouldn't say I am, though I could definitely be a lot happier, there's still stuff I regularly enjoy like going to the gym, watching films, talking to one of the two mates I still regularly talk to and reading books, although obviously that last one's not really been happening recently. I'm thinking maybe it's because I've had so little going on for the past 6-7 months that my mind has started going a little bit flat and lazy or summat, and that maybe once I get a job and start working my mind will regain a bit of liveliness and I'll appreciate having time to read once more again. Or maybe my brain has just been a bit frazzled by having it in front of too many screens for too long recently. Whatever the reason is for this mental shithousery I hope it will soon pass so I can get back into me books, there's so much I want to read. And thanks for bigging up my film taste, I'm sure you've got great taste yourself mate.

>>16637951
>read Joseph and his brothers in 7 days
holy fuck bro get a job

>>16639217
Thoughts on The Tin Drum and Symposium?

>>16637471
Divine Comedy
The Wanting Seed
A Clockwork Orange
Earthly [Powers

>>16637471
Ellul's Propaganda
Moby DIck
Tom Jones
Don Quixote
The Ancient City
Satyricon
The Shallows
As I Lay Dying
A Canticle for Liebowitz
The True Believer

I think that's it.

>>16639247
I enjoyed it. He can be a bit full of himself but that’s not a vice I ever minded all that much.
I liked the bits about his friendships with Martin Amis and Salman Rushdie. And his feuds with Edward Said and his brother.

>>16640414
Solid list, but 10 works in 10 months? That's a weak pace. How often do you read, anon?

>>16640398
I found The Dim Drum rather boring. Some passages are very funny or brilliant but it’s mostly repetitive and not that interesting. I’d maybe recommend it if it were shorter but I did not take much pleasure finishing it and it really dragged. It was the first novel by Grass I read so I can’t compare, maybe if you liked one of his other book, you’ll like it: his style took a lot of place. Xenophon’s Symposium on the contrary is really short and really funny. There is no point reading it if you don’t have Plato’s Symposium in mind because this one is far far less philosophical (it’s about the same event). Xenophon was also a student of Socrates and here he just shows him as an old funny wise dude having fun with his friends and being witty. It’s clearly the shortest book I have read this year but I really enjoyed it. The Anabasis is also very good.

>>16640479
>I found The Dim Drum rather boring
That's a shame, I found it great, and it has a lot of memorable moments. I do think that some of the stuff is boring, and there's a quality drop in part 3 (the part describing what happens post-war). I also disliked some very disgusting scenes e.g. the one in which the spit of Oscar mixes with the spit of that one woman.
I'll check out The Symposium. I disliked Plato's version since all the talk about love bored me and the work is nowhere as philosophical as most of his other dialogues. I've already read The Anabasis and I loved it (although when they get to the coast of Euxine sea it gets less exciting).

>>16640497
>I also disliked some very disgusting scenes e.g. the one in which the spit of Oscar mixes with the spit of that one woman.
Kek. It was one of my favourite scene because of its surrealist value. I also had trouble with Grass’ humour, I think it often didn’t work for me.
Yeah definitely check out the Symposium, it’s really short as I said so you have nothing to loose.

>>16640533
>It was one of my favourite scene
For me, it's when he's playing cards with his dad and the other guy while WW2 is starting and the scene with the guy who kills himself with that one contraption.
> you have nothing to loose
*lose
Thanks again. Also, checked.

>>16639691
Not putting enough effort in desu

I only started reading again this August. Ratings don't mean much, would place a lot of books at 3.5 or 4.5 stars if I could.

>>16637471
I went through the thick brick that is the Harry Potter series. My IQ increased tenfold.

>>16639691
Why were you disappointed in the Greeks?

>>16639825
Yeah it was sick

>>16637471
>Devils
>The Flowers of Evil
>Crime and Punishment
>The Idiot
>Myth of Sisyphus
>Notes from Underground
>The Rebel
>The Sickness Unto Death
>Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
>Austerlitz
>The Fall
>The Plague
>Fear and Trembling
>The Stranger
>The Trial
>Exile and the Kingdom
>A Happy Death
>Mrs. Dalloway
>A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Currently Reading
>Lolita
>Atomised

bump