/lit/ - Literature and Writing

Its a lot of sticky, I think getting rid of book club sticky, issue 1 sticky, the board greeting sticky could clean it up a bit, if it looks bad they can be restickied. The board posting in itself is stagnant but theres not a lot that can be done without a decent influx of users. Someone makes an effortpost, it get minor traction, then people degrade it and it catalogues with minimal post count. Cross board contamination is an idea but they are also dead. As it stands and this is my personal opinion, I like having it for what it is, book club, random posts, the paragraph novel, and the feuilleton. Everything else should be /tv/ because it's dying.

I think it's slow enough make one sticky if assholes reading looking for someone to talk about it with. It's always up and it gives singular little bit of help.

>>1335
>>1327

ty guiez 4 ur respawnsis, dey've been handily considurred 4 the plan goean ahead.

trial period'll b dis - the sticky'sll b the board greetan, /lit/ writes a novel + the book club, w/ feuilleton premieres stickied 4 the 1st week n mayb un-stickyean the book club thread eef durrs moar pressin stickies OAR eets active enuff dat its usually fine 2 sift aot awn the rezt ov duh board prawpur.

eye'll leave dis 1 auwp 4 lyk anuddur week oar soe 2 eef ne1 else has a saie/recommendations %^x

>>1337

very l33t poast # startauwp, anon-dono - dis sheyutt gits duh a-okay frum mie >%^>

wud def b daon 2 link eet ean the thread oar bundle eet w/ a future separate collectid release eef u did diz

>>1339
This man

>>1339
Ok. Bearing in mind I have to figure out how to do that first though.

>>1315
nobody cares

>>1344
I do.

In the grand scheme of things, has an engineer ever made that much?
Moreover, George Lincoln Rockwell said that great artists have great endeavours outside of their art because they can visualize otherwise. So if all three have artistic merit all three have the power to lead the fourth Reich ok?

None of this makes any sense.

Until very recently in history, most people had to share beds on ships and at hotels unless they were rich enough to afford their own private room. It wasn't seen as sexual back then unless it was just one man and one woman sharing a bed. Especially in the 19th century when even sitting in your bro's lap or holding his hand wasn't seen as gay. It was a better time.

>>1199
So you're saying the nigger wasn't given a pile of hay in storage locker or somewhere

>>1203
No. If you put a nigger on a pile of hay he might start eating it.

>>1187
He never relaxes though. He spends an entire chapter describing his fear of the nigger. I got bored about halfway through the book, and I was reading it on the clock at work. I wouldn't suggest this garbage, there is much better literature available like Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Flip the page, booklet.

>>936
Well reading something that's edifying and well reasoned can give you a different frame for thinking about things or a clearer picture of the truth, and improve your character. It won't raise your IQ, but it will seem like your IQ was higher since you'll make better decisions and have a better grasp of reality because of the model you've inherited from the author.

On the other hand, credulously consuming garbage that's terribly reasoned, corrupting, or purposefully crafted to be deceptive sophistry can make you functionally retarded and a huge fucking faggot. This is most things they read in college english, history, psychology, sociology, and poli-sci courses. Your IQ won't really be lower, but you'll be useless just like if it was because you're operating using a faulty model of reality.

So basically if you're of average intelligence and don't trust your own ability to sort trash from things of value, either don't read philosophy/nonfiction/mainstream fiction, or at least limit yourself to Christian apologism, theology or things written before the 1850's, and I'm 100% serious. If you're not equipped to defend yourself modern literature is a minefield of poisonous anti-knowledge. Basically 100% of female non-stem graduates would have much better lives if they never read anything post highschool, probably stopping even before then. Even if you think you can handle it, consuming too much trash and books of low morals is still damaging in and of itself, be careful!

Reading disconnects you from your surroundings and makes you a midwit.

>>954
This is the kind of hazard I was talking about. The world is full of the kind of overeducated dope who values the vague propaganda concepts of "freedom" and "equality" more than human life and flourishing, even their own. It's how you can live in a dystopian city with declining living standards year over year, be cognizant of "bad neighborhoods" of a certain demographic, go to your holding pen of corporate underemployement where you are constantly assailed with propaganda pandering to said demographic, and then conclude "white supremacy" and "fascism" are to blame. It's a total prioritization of the internalized theoretical framework above the obvious reality.

Of course awful literature isn't the only culprit, but is a major one.

>>936
It has increased my vocabulary, and increased my foresight for future actions - granted both were never that great to begin with.

>>956
Is there anyway to identify and avoid said propaganda? Mainstream media, and magazines are obvious sources for it, but I do believe there are other, better designed ways of getting propaganda across. Is a work written by one who genuinely believes in those concepts, necessarily propaganda, or do they need to discuss said concepts or feature them as a theme in some way?

>>1132
The obvious thing would be to significantly limit your exposure to media. Instead of watching TV, go for a walk, look at some trees. Trees can't lie to you. People's understanding of the world is supposed to come from the world, not from some intellectual abstraction of the world.
And I fully realise the irony of me saying this on a website dedicated to television.

I don't care, both are mongrels.

>>1001
Whiter than you, mutt.

>>997
>this dumb faggot thinks Pushkin was a real flesh and blood person

lol

>>940
The Internet Archive (archive.org) for those Public Domain classics, and any old torrent site if you sail the high seas.

Overdrive
Libby

LibriVox

Youtube with a videodownloader extensiom

>>587
>8coom
fuck off Ron

>>602
nope.

>>330
I hope your life has been going well since writing this, anon. Since posting what you responded to, I have recently married, finished school, and are now comfortably seated in a career in which I have been able to help repair the years of poverty my family has been relegated to. I am woefully obliged to inform you that I did not read this response in a particularly timely manner, as I have now gotten around to writing this thoughtful and carefully written post. I did not return to 4chan, as I have been too beset by the toils of everyday life. I hope your time has been well spent and you too, have reached goals you had thought impossible, and that you too, have found love in your life. I wonder if I heeded your advice when it was posted- I would be dead, not needing me to respond to this post. I wanted to post in order to disabuse you of the thought, now having it been near half a year now, that I took your advice.

>>910
Post your ring faggot

>>918
I take back the faggot statement that was rude.

IIRC the Astolfo was an invention of Boiardo in his Orlando Innamorato in the Renaissance (although he's more well known from it's sequel, Orlando Furioso by Ariosto) and is not in any of the "authentic" Matter of France material from the high middle ages. Ironically, that cuckime character is probably named after the Astolfo of the two great Orlando poems. Japs love naming random shit after western mythology but they have no actual knowledge of it. Go ahead and read the Orlando poems. They are very vivid and well written, Orlando Furioso especially, and will make you forget all about that cuckime.

>>911
>Go ahead and read the Orlando poems
Yeah I'm planning on it once I've had a little time to forget Bullfinch a little. I'd already read the Song of Roland and realized that Bullfinch was a bit less than faithful to the source material after reading his version of the Battle of Ronceveaux.

>>891
Only read two stories by Swain, I think, The Man With the Roller, which was covered on A Podcast to the Curious, and Bone to His Bone. The first was too much like James' story The Mezzotint, but without the weird ghostly figure and a rather blant climax.
After James I think I have enjoyed Benson & Malden's ghost stories the most. Malden in particular is very close to James in tone, subjects and climax. Benson has some very fine stories as well, though he has written so many stories you are found to come across some bland ones as well.
I would recommend seven of Malden's ghost stories; The Coxswain of the Lifeboat & The Priest's Brass did nothing for me, but the other stories are great. In particular I enjoyed The Dining-room Fireplace & The Sundial.
As for Benson, I would probably rate these the highest: The Room in the Tower, Caterpillars, The Thing in the Hall, The Outcast, Negotium Perambulans, "And No Bird Sing", The Temple & The Sanctuary.

Not typically associated with the typical ghost story, but John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir, wrote some eerie weird stories as well, and H. P. Lovecraft spoke highly of these in his essay Supernatural Horror in Literature:
<In the novel Witch Wood John Buchan depicts with tremendous force a survival of the evil Sabbat in a lonely district of Scotland. The description of the black forest with the evil stone, and of the terrible cosmic adumbrations when the horror is finally extripated, will repay one for wading though the very gradual action and plenthora of Scottish dialect. Some of Mr. Buchan's short stories are also very vivid in their spectral intimations; "The Green Wildebeest", a tale of African witchcraft, "The Wind in the Portico", with its awakening of dead Britanno-Roman horrors, and "Skule Skerry", with its touches of sub-arctic fright, being especially remarkable.

The Wind in the Portico: http://archive.vn/8KTgl#c04 / http://web.archive.org/web/20200629160039/http:/Post too long. Click here to view the full text.

diz izzuh rly gangbustarz threiad n awldoe eye haev nuttin 2 add 2 eet rly u've bookendid the yr just rite w/ the ephortpoastean u put 4ward OP - just wantid 2 giev u my heartfelt thanqs 4 solidifyean sum comfytime reedin materiyoolz n wish ewe a happy nu yr alawngsyde err1 else who mayde /lit/ a gr8 board 4 deez past 9 months %^D

>>893
>Only read two stories by Swain, I think, The Man With the Roller, which was covered on A Podcast to the Curious, and Bone to His Bone. The first was too much like James' story The Mezzotint, but without the weird ghostly figure and a rather blant climax.
It's better to take The Stoneground Ghost tales as one light mystery book rather than as multiple horror short stories. The book generally centers around one minister at one church, so you can't exactly have him die or go mad at the end of each story. The book is overall designed to be more subtle, contemplative, and cozy than the James circle's usual fare, but the fact that M.R. James himself enjoyed it is a decent sign that it's worth a read so long as you understand that it's a bit different in tone from something like Ghost Stories of an Antiquary.

>>895
Thank you most kindly, BO! Seasons greetings to you, and the fine shitposters on this site, as well.
And if I may be so bold, you have a very colourful and original way of writing.

>>896
Talking about the James Gang, there is also Arthur Gray & Christopher Woodforde (https://archive.vn/erqL / https://web.archive.org/web/20200120040235/http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pardos/ArchiveWoodforde.html), though I am wholly unfamiliar with them at present. From what I have read Woodforde's stories were written for children, so they, too, lack that extra punch/horror.

M. P. Dare's Fatal Oak was too similar to James' The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral for my taste. Barchester is a reference to the fictional place where some (or most?) of Anthony Trollope's novels are set. His novel Doctor Thorne (set in Barchester) was one of the books I got for Christmas; I have already seen the 2016 adaptation by Julian Fellowes, but Trollope really goes in-depth with the place and the characters.
Benson has some rather graphic scenes of horror in his stories, and Dare surprises too, with some quite nasty scenes, but hasn't yet given me that "pleasing terror" James did with some of his finest stories.

Two of James' unfinished story drafts, The Game of Bear Post too long. Click here to view the full text.

Finished M. P. Dare's ghost story collection, Unholy Relics and other Uncanny Tales, yesterday, and I thought it was a fine collection of ghostly tales, nicely bridging the gap between M. R. James & E. G. Swain. It has the same antiquarian touches and characters of James' stories, and the same two characters figure in each tale like the protagonist in Swain's stories.

These stories have a very cosy, comfy setting with these two bachelors of independent means who reside in a Leicestershire manor-house together with their two man-servants ("the Apostles", James & John) and can go about researching whatever catches their interest. Like Holmes & Watson they share a manor-house together and are frequently called out to examine some archaeological find or architectural curiosity and end up encountering ghosts (or "thought-forms") and other supernatural phenomena because of their curiosity. I wish there had been more punch to the horrors they encounter/experience in their researches to contrast the cosiness. The Haunted Drawers is a nice, mostly comedic tale, and The Nymph Still Lives is an entirely pleasant tale free of any horror whatsoever; The Forgotten Italian is limp and lifeless, and The Beam is just another variant of the Fatal Oak plot, i.e. James' The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral.
I very much enjoyed the description of the countryside in An Abbot's Magic; truly great stuff, very atmospheric. Sadly the payoff is very weak indeed; just the ghostly apparition of an abbot accused of alchemy!

Anyone who prefers the less ghastly tales à la E. G. Swain to the more grim ghost stories of H. R. Wakefield will likely enjoy M. P. Dare's collection of ghost stories a lot. While the collection has yet to pass into Public Domain it is up on the Internet Archive, so be sure to DL if it you want it, lest they take it down. The original edition is probably no easy to come by, and the Ash-Tree Press re-print might be even harder to track down, and is no doubt rather expensive.