/lit/ - Literature

>last five

Siddhartha
Steppenwolf
Narcissus and Goldmund
The Wayward Bus
Notes From the Underground

>currently reading

Swann's way

>next five

The next five books by Proust I guess. Love the prose.

Notes From the Underground
East of Eden
The Brothers Karamazov
Narcissus and Goldmund
The Sun Also Rises

>>3911252

The characters are rather one-sided and dull, but I really liked the story when I read it some years ago. Nice re-read value too.

Silmarillion and Narn i chîn Húrin are both 10/10 books. Seriously, the mythology is perfect. I seriously hope Hollywood doesnt try to convert them into film.

Väinö Linna.

The worst part is its characters. As the series progresses, the protagonist, Eragon, becomes more and more like a god - first he gets magic powers, then he learns to read and write fluently in a week, then he becomes the world's greatest swordsman after a couple months' time of sparring with a wooden stick.

It's even worse in the second book: he turns into a superman/elf (which apparently also makes his crotch hairless), a vegan (though he stops in the third book) and what else. Then, in the third book, he begins to show sings of sociopathy: he kills a surrendered soldier in cold blood "because there's no other alternative" (which is ridiculous, considering how he could easily make him sleep with his magic powers and hide him in a bush or something), while also murdering an innocent townsman simply to prove a point to a bunch of weak human soldiers in a battle. Freakin ridiculous. The worst part is how Paolini's other characters tell Eragon how he is so morally competent and a perfect human being - despite being a stupid seventeen year old kid.

In the fourth book, Eragon eventually becomes a god. Yay.

I won't even start on the stupid ass prose.

>>3883736

I'd say so, though BK has a couple of parts just as difficult - for example, Father Zozima's teaching.

>LAST READ

Steppenwolf, Narcissos and Goldmund, Notes from the Underground

>CURRENTLY READING

The Stranger

>WILL READ

Siddhartha

Really loving Hesse. Also rekindled my interest in Dostoyevski - read Brothers Karamazov, C&P and The Idiot last year, and after Notes I thought I should try out his other novels, too.

Best Opening Paragraph: Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses. Its inhabitants are, as the man once said, 'whores, pimps, gamblers and sons of bitches,' by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, 'Saints and angels and martyrs and holy men,' and he would have meant the same thing."

Best Title: The Sun Also Rises

>>3517695
>They had two children out of love and two out of habit.

Posted it before, yeah. The book itself is stagnating at the moment.

They had two children out of love and two out of habit.

Tapani Maskula, the Finnish critic who's seen every single Finnish film since 1960, and almost every other film shown at cinemas on top of that. I like his style.

John Steinbeck

Favourites: /fit/, /lit/, /mu/, /tv/, /sp/

Nope, they're just horrible. Eragon is one of the worst characters I've ever read about. Seriously, he kills people for fun, yet all characters act like he's the hot shit and the perfect saint he really freaking isn't. He makes bad excuses for his sociopathic behaviour, has stupid "morals" about such things as vegetarianism, he's a very bad mary sue, and above all else he's annoying as heck.

I won't even start on the other flaws.

Earendil was a mariner
who tarried in Arvernien
he built a boat of timber felled
in Nimbrethil to journey in

Google "everything wrong with Eragon", it's a good series

That entire album is just godlike. Almost perfect.

I'm Finnish and I read English and Swedish books regularly (English for stuff like Joyce, Faulkner, Steinbeck etc, Swedish for lighter detective books), and I've also started reading books in Spanish recently.

It's really easy, honestly. Started reading in English when I was ten or something and The Order of Phoenix came out and I couldn't wait for the translation. You get the knack of it really easily.

>>3202557

(cont)

From Evereven's lofty hills
where softly silver fountains fall
his wings him bore, a wandering light,
beyond the might Mountain Wall.
From World's End then he turned away,
and yearned again to find afar
his home through shadows journeying,
and burning as an island star
on high above the mists he came,
a distant flame before the Sun,
a wonder ere the waking dawn
where grey the Norland waters run.

And over Middle-earth he passed
and heard at last the weeping sore
of women and of elven-maids
In Elder Days, in years of yore.
But on him mighty doom was laid,
till Moon should fade, an orbéd star
to pass, and tarry never more
on Hither Shores where mortals are;
or ever still a herald on
an errand that should never rest
to bear his shining lamp afar,
the Flammifer of Westernesse.

>>3202554

(cont)

Through Evernight he back was borne
on black and roaring waves that ran
o'er leagues unlit and foundered shores
that drowned before the Days began,
until he hears on strands of pearl
where ends the world the music long,
where ever-foaming billows roll
the yellow gold and jewels wan.
He saw the Mountain silent rise
where twilight lies upon the knees
of Valinor, and Eldamar
beheld afar beyond the seas.
A wanderer escaped from night
to haven white he came at last,
to Elvenhome the green and fair
where keen the air, where pale as glass
beneath the Hill of Ilmarin
a-glimmer in a valley sheer
the lamplit towers of Tirion
are mirrored on the Shadowmere.

He tarried there from errantry,
and melodies they taught to him,
and sages old him marvels told,
and harps of gold they brought to him.
They clothed him then in elven-white,
and seven lights before him sent,
as through the Calacirian
to hidden land forlorn he went.
He came unto the timeless halls
where shining fall the countless years,
and endless reigns the Elder King
in Ilmarin on Mountain sheer;
and words unheard were spoken then
of folk of Men and Elven-kin,
beyond the world were visions showed
forbid to those that dwell therein.

A ship then new they built for him
of mithril and of elven-glass
with shining prow; no shaven oar
nor sail she bore on silver mast:
the Silmaril as lantern light
and banner bright with living flame
to gleam thereon by Elbereth
herself was set, who thither came
and wings immortal made for him,
and laid on him undying doom,
to sail the shoreless skies and come
behind the Sun and light of Moon.

Eärendil was a mariner
that tarried in Arvernien;
he built a boat of timber felled
in Nimbrethil to journey in;
her sails he wove of silver fair,
of silver were her lanterns made,
her prow was fashioned like a swan,
and light upon her banners laid.

In panoply of ancient kings,
in chained rings he armoured him;
his shining shield was scored with runes
to ward all wounds and harm from him;
his bow was made of dragon-horn,
his arrows shorn of ebony;
of silver was his habergeon,
his scabbard of chalcedony;
his sword of steel was valiant,
of adamant his helmet tall,
an eagle-plume upon his crest,
upon his breast an emerald.

Beneath the Moon and under star
he wandered far from northern strands,
bewildered on enchanted ways
beyond the days of mortal lands.
From gnashing of the Narrow Ice
where shadow lies on frozen hills,
from nether heats and burning waste
he turned in haste, and roving still
on starless waters far astray
at last he came to Night of Naught,
and passed, and never sight he saw
of shining shore nor light he sought.

The winds of wrath came driving him,
and blindly in the foam he fled
from west to east and errandless,
unheralded he homeward sped.
There flying Elwing came to him,
and flame was in the darkness lit;
more bright than light of diamond
the fire upon her carcanet.
The Silmaril she bound on him
and crowned him with the living light,
and dauntless then with burning brow
he turned his prow; and in the night
from otherworld beyond the Sea
there strong and free a storm arose,
a wind of power in Tarmenel;
by paths that seldom mortal goes
his boat it bore with biting breath
as might of death across the grey
and long-forsaken seas distressed:
from east to west he passed away.

3=4>5>1>7>6>2

3 & 4 are so much better than the others it isn't even funny.

The Brothers Karamazov
Les Misérables
The Grapes of Wrath
The Count of Monte-Cristo
Anna Karenina