Back in high school most of the book discussions were exclusively about explaining it to students who couldn't understand the material (included (parts of) The Oddesy, Anthem by Ayn Rand, The Cask of Amontillado and Telltale Heart, A Streetcar Named Desire, To Kill a Mockingbird, some satire of Victorian social standards that I can't remember the name of, and probably more I can't remember)

We also had to read A Separate Peace during the Summer and when classes started we had a week to discuss it and turn in a report on it.

I hated it, everyone else probably hated it, and the only thing discussed was how the two main characters were totes gay for each other (actually true). Then the next year we read The Great Gatsby, and discussion over it was relegated to talking about how the two main characters were totes gay for each other (also true)

To Kill a Mockingbird was pulled from the curriculum the year after my class read it b/c a student complained about the N word

So what were your school lit discussions like? Surface-level repetition of plot points or high-brow elucidating dialogues?

For the writers in here, what's the most embarrassing thing you've ever written?

I'll go first:

Back when I was a braindead teenager, I postponed my senior capstone for an entire semester.

I originally started designing a whole table top game. This would have included box art, a resource book with illustrations, tables, the whole 9 yards.

But I was laughed at by 3 fat they/thems when I presented that idea.

So I wrote an awful novella about lesbians going to prom in the last 2 weeks of the project. I admittedly hamed it up for extra points by padding out the plot with needless identity politics. But I got a B+ and multiple classmates said it was the best thing they'd ever read because it spoke to them as

Helmer: You are talking like a child. You understand nothing about the society you live in.

Nora: No I don't... I must try to discover who is right, society or me.

Off the top of my head, there's Ted's favorite book, Conrad's The Secret Agent (which gets my vote, because he makes fun of Twitter anarchists for larping). There's all the angsty shit Dostoevsky wrote. There's Roth's American Pastoral, which, if anything, is anti-. Then of course there's blue-pilled 1880s Norwegian feminism, or old-timey female Joker lit: Ibsen.

But what really is the angstiest piece of literature for edgy anarchists to read that's not shit? 1984 doesn't count, because Orwell was a boring socialist and it's peachy and redditty, unlike Brave New World. What Is to Be Done? doesn't count, because Nabokov and I say it's dreadful.

What would the gigabrained Joker actually carry under his arm as he assassinates John Lennon?

Thoughts on having a rdrama weekly book club?

We could have a nomination thread to propose the books, then a voting thread with the most upmarseyd proposals from the previous thread to decide it. Just an idea, I’m not a janny so I don’t know how to create voting threads, maybe the /h/lit mods can do it.

Anyways, if this happens I nominate The Iliad. I read it last year, but is one of those books I would read again, no problem, and is so dramatic and probably very fun to discuss

One I haven’t read yet, but would like to nominate is Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, is short and looks interesting (literal bugman lmao).

Hello everynyan :3, today is a very special day because it's the day I've decided to write this post, these last few weeks I've been torturing myself reading Francis Fukuyama's "The End of History and the Last Man" inspired by this wholesome marsey made by @Most_Hated_Man_Alive.

This will be a refutation of the whole book, not point by point because that's boring, but I will try my best to explain why Fukuyama is a talentless cute twink too far up his own butt.

The book's first mistake is contradicting itself in the first few sentences, it's not akshually the end of herstory, that's just a figure of speech. According to Fukuyama, the science is settled, with the fall of the USSR, liberal democracy is the most perfect system in all of human history, nothing can compare to it. When shown that things like the Iraq War and the Chinaman protests of 89' still happen, he explaind that it is not a literal end of history, things will continue to happen, it's just that liberal democracy is the greatest system ever and I FRICKING LOVE SCIENCE!

That is, while earlier forms of government were characterized by grave defects an irrationalities that led to their eventual

collapse, liberal democracy was arguably free from such fundamental internal contradictions. This was not to say that today's

stable democracies, like the United States, France, or Switzerland,

were not without injustice or serious social problems. But these

problems were ones of incomplete implementation of the twin principles of liberty an d equality on which moder n democracy is

founded, rather than of flaws in the principles themselves. While

some present-day countries might fail to achieve stable liberal

democracy, and others might lapse back into other, mor e primitive forms of rule like theocracy or military dictatorship, the ideal

of liberal democracy could not be improved on.

When shown with the existence of systems that are neither liberal nor democratic in the modern world, he understandably says "liberal democracy le good doe". When shown the faults of liberal democracies across the world, he convincingly says "liberal democracy le good doe". When shown that the world as a whole isn't heading to a unitary world government led by liberal democracies, he succintly states "uh, the science is settled chud, trust the science."

But in addition, human beings seek recognition of their own worth,

Yes, according to Fukuyama most of human history is just a twitter attention seeking tournament, how heckin revolutionary oh my science!

Assuming that liberal democracy is, for the moment, safe from external enemies, could we assume that successful democratic societies could remain that way indefinitely Or is liberal democracy prey to serious internal contradictions, contradictions so serious that they will eventually undermine it as a political system? There is no doubt that contemporary democracies face any number of serious problems, from drugs, homelessness, and crime to environmental damage and the frivolity of consumerism. But these problems are not obviously insoluble on the basis of liberal principles, nor so serious that they would necessarily lead to the collapse of society as a whole, as communism collapsed in the 1980s.

In case you haven't noticed, his entire argument is "Liberal democracy is the main characterino so there's no way it could fall, liberal democracy will live on forrevaaaaar "

He then tries to use the words of this guy called Hegel (the character from Fallout New Vegas) to argue why human history is just attention seekers and therefore liberal democracy le good. To my knowledge Hegels is @COMMUNISTHOMOGROYPER 's grandpa or something so trying to explain why liberal democracy le good with his words is like trying to explain why zionism is le good using Mein Kampf, total nonsense.

To summarize, liberal democracy le good, the science is settled, liberal democracy will thriumph over nationalism fascism communism indians etc. Liberal democracy will live on forever and nothing is better so stop trying to better the system the new world order is here. You cannot change anything it's perfect as it is. Any argument saying it's not perfect or that it has its faults is wrong because it just is, chud. DO NOT QUESTION THE NEW WORLD ORDER DO NOT QUESTION THE NEW WORLD ORDER DO NOT QUESTION THE NEW WORLD ORDER DO NOT QUESTION THE NEW WORLD ORDER

Fukuyama is a literal in writer form, nuff' said.

The rest of the book summarized:

That is my whole review, @neoconshill please pin this post in /h/lit I put a lot of effort into it. @COMMUNISTHOMOGROYPER please do the needful and post DNA

To discuss your weekly readings of books, textbooks, papers, etc.

I’m currently on Chapter 3 Part 2 of Lolita (page 166 of the annotated edition). I have no idea why people say this book is pedophilia apologia, or why some say the main character is “sympathetic”. Humbert Humbert is not just a perv, he’s a psychopath as well. He marries a woman he loathes solely so he could lust after his preteen daughter, he feels no remorse, guilt or sadness when she dies (I think he killed her, Charlotte’s death was way to convenient for it to be an accident), he kidnaps the girl, sexually abuses her and blackmails her by telling if she dares to turn him over to the police, she’ll end up in an orphanage and therefore is better off with him. There is nothing likable about this besides the fact he’s funny and witty. As for the witting, is absolutely beautiful, so many references, wordplay and french quotes, you can tell how great Nabokov was by making such a great book with a such a delicate subject as this.

What were your favorites books during childhood? Or maybe children’s books you read after growing up.

When I was a kid, the first book I read was The Little Prince (I think I was around 9 or 10), the drawings are so lovely (I liked to draw the elephant inside the snake/hat thing lmao) and I thought the story was cool. My mom used to read me some chapters from am illustrated version of The Jungle Book before sleep when I was little (plus those classic tales like Pinocchio and such). I also read a couple of the “Sitio do Picapau Amarelo” book series, which is super famous in Brazil, by Monteiro Lobato, he was a great author, but I don’t know if his works were translated.

And what were some you hated?

Its is utterly impossible to understand what happened in Germany. All the different massacres and so on unless you realize they were imbued with this Superman spirit. It represents the abolition of law, the Superman is above the law, all laws. Democratic law, the real law, and even the law of physics and chemistry. He's a person to himself. So what you teach the young person, and incidentally the older person too, is that you have no responsibility. You have to appeal to one individual who will take care of everything.

Boys, and have seen some myself I have to examine them, have really tried that to jump over the banister, fall down, and break their leg. Or try to almost go out of the window. Or later on as men there many of my patients telling me look as a child you I really thought fly or thank God I didn't try but I know someone who did. He [Superman] represents superstition. So here you have violence, superstition, complete distrust in the community, complete distrust in the law, complete trust in a strong individual who can do things which cannot be done.

What do you think of the idea that Superman stands for truth, justice, and the American Way.

Well how can one stand for something that doesn't exist it's very difficult, but he doesn't for one thing he doesn't he comes at the last moment flies through the air and helps. That's not what the girls know who have been r*ped and killed and mutilated. They don't need someone to fly through the air. You need a policeman on the beat to see that this neighborhood gets nuts in such a weird way. So to say Superman stands for right and stands for the good that may have been so in the beginning when these two school boys started him it may have been so but at the present moment Superman stands for violence.

I will likely be dead before an American writes something decent.

To discuss your weekly readings of books, textbooks, papers, etc.

I started Lolita this week, I’m currently on page 61. I have no idea why some people believe this is a libertarian apologia, it took me only 10 pages to feel completely disgusted by Humbert Humbert, especially when he started talking about his “nymphets” . But as with Charles Kinbote, I have to say Humbert is a super funny narrator, the way he trashes Mrs Haze at every opportunity, so bitchy and so manipulative lmao, which makes him much scarier than Kinbote, who was unmistakably a schizo to everyone around him.

Sometimes I can’t believe Nabokov was Russian, his dominion over the English Language is quite impressive, even if he grew up in a trilingual environment, typical of the Russian aristocracy.

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant is a bizarre series that I am having a hard time describing. The short of the long of it is that it is about a dude with leprosy who gets isekai'd and the first thing he does is r*pe one of the inhabitants, but yeah, also the chosen one to save the world and shit.

The first of the original trilogy is Lord Fouls Bane

BREAKING NEWS: Cormac McCarthy, a preeminent voice in American literature over the better part of the past half-century, died today at his home in Santa Fe, N.M., his publisher, Knopf, confirmed. He was 89. Full obit to follow.

— Publishers Weekly (@PublishersWkly) June 13, 2023

>we open on a lifelong arthoe who is likely over 50, but presents as early 40s

>preggers by an absent father, but horselord sister totally vibes and no stress bc "so young so fun"

>end of world things happen

>arthoe births her child

>But Also another braphog births at the same time

>everyone but arthoe and children die bc end of world stuff

>art hoe huffs and puffs and names the kids Boy and Girl, because end of world

>birds are maybe important bc sometimes they alert you or don't, plot twist

>several end of the world things happen

>she arrives at the avian utopia and realizes she loves both her own child and the adopted child she both refused to name.

>she names them each in honor of lost men in a moment of maternal ecstasy that makes no comment on the emotional labor imposed on single mothers

The bestselling author of “Eat, Pray, Love” is indefinitely delaying the publication of her new book set in the Russian province of Siberia following backlash from Ukrainian readers, she announced on social media Monday morning.

Elizabeth Gilbert said she is halting publication of her novel, "The Snow Forest," originally slated to publish in February 2024, after receiving "an enormous, massive outpouring of reactions and responses from my Ukrainian readers expressing anger, sorrow, disappointment, and pain about the fact that I would choose to release a book into the world right now — any book, no matter what the subject of it is — that is set in Russia."

"I want to say that I have heard these messages, have read these messages and I respect them. And as a result I'm making a course correction and removing the book from its publication schedule," she continued.

"It is not the time for this book to be published. And I do not want to add any harm to a group of people who have already experienced, and are continuing to experience, grievous and extreme harm," Gilbert added.

Gilbert described the novel as “set in the middle of Siberia in the middle of the last century and told the story of a group of individuals who made a decision to remove themselves from the society to resist the Soviet government and to try to defend nature against industrialization.”

...

Though Gilbert's announcement doesn't mention them specifically, more than 500 reviewers appear to have given the book one-star ratings on the book reviewing website Goodreads in recent days, with several accusing Gilbert of "romanticizing " Russia while living at a safe distance from the country's devastating war with Ukraine.

Maybe I should lay off /r/writing posters for a bit, published authors regularly beat them in cringe.

Carp posted a poetry contest about the Bardfinn in /r/Drama, which was fun until it got jannied, so I want to host another one here. English only (Latin allowed if you're feeling quirky), but it has to be related rDrama. If it's the type of thing to get posted here, it's allowed. It'll close tomorrow, Monday 6/11, at 21:00 PDT so get it in by then. Reward and what determines the winner is, we'll see... trans lives matter

I've never written anything more than essays for college, but I can't help but be curious of the literary prowess that my fellow dramatards may possess

To discuss your weekly readings of books, textbooks, papers, etc.

I’ve been very slow this week, currently should start act III of Hamlet. So far is very good. It looks like Ophelia has BPD, and if I had to choose, Claudius seems much saner than Hamlet even if wicked, and therefore a better ruler. Queen Gertrude is a c*nt though.

From Goethe to Kafka, there have been many renowned German Language authors. From the 1800s onwards german literature flourished, acquiring worldwide notoriety.

I haven’t read german authors so I’ll just follow the recommendations and .

A follow up to these previous posts:

https://rdrama.net/h/lit/post/176004/in-2002-penguin-books-republished-all

https://rdrama.net/h/lit/post/176100/2008-michael-gillette-james-bond-covers

@GayPoon as you can see; no sign of the man himself on the cover.

Follow-up to this post:

https://rdrama.net/h/lit/post/176004/in-2002-penguin-books-republished-all

@Summerland here is the answer to your question.

@ForcedRegistrycel see your black kween on Man With the Golden Gun & Live and Let Die (although Solitaire and Goodnight were actually white)

@KITTYGROYPER @kaamrev @GayPoon @Fabrico maybe these ones suit you more?