/lit/ - Literature

Disappointment, pain, boredom, sadness, death.

pic unrelated

Prose that Nabokov should have been rightly afraid of.

>I need someone else's approval before reading anything more difficult than "A Christmas Carol".

SUDDEN CHALLENGE:
I challenge you to read all 8000 pages in 4 days

>>6394174
Not OP, but it would take me over a week of non-stop (24/7) reading to read 8000 pages.

>>6394172
To date I have read (of my own free will)
>Cather in the Rye
>Of Mice and Men
>Grapes of Wrath
>Siddhartha

is that good enough?

>>6394155
Amazingly lucid representation sense-perception, memory and remembrance. You will experience seeing the world more clearly while and after reading. It's like a fog lifts.

you should read it and then tell us what you think like any brave person would do

you are brave I hope

>>6394155
You don't have a conception yet of just how long it is, how many sessions it will take... Once you get this conception, the real experience begins.

>>6394183
It's OK.

>>6394183
fuck no jesus christ

>>6394183
yeah dude, go right ahead! reading is fun!


you are a fucking pleb and nothing will prepare you for the crippling realization that you are too stupid to read one of the greatest literary works of all time :)

What >translation does the folio society edition use?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwAOc4g3K-g

>>6394183
that book is one of the longest ones ever written

>catcher
>micemen
>grapes
how do you go from the highschool trinity to proust?

>>6394183
Honestly? You should probably x3 that amount in more grounded, accessible and shorter allegories before trying Search.

Though it could be a great experience if you do it now, and set you up for a lifetime of reading.

Give it a shot, don't feel like too much of a failure if you have to switch half way into v1.

>>6394155

Is the Moncrieff/Kilmartin translation a decent one?

>>6394155

be prepared to search for all that time your about to lose lmao

ayyyyyy

Don't do it bro, that book was specifically made to flatter academics who think they have a 'higher knowledge' of words and grammar, it's fucking shit. He goes out of his way to not include plot devices to help move the reader along.

>>6394183
save proust for later

>>6394157
lel

>>6394270
The book was specifically made to enshrine the romantic-enlightenment sentiments of the professional class against those of bourgeois and those of the moldering aristocracy, (including the professional class' lingering, curious affection for the quaint artifact of nobility as perhaps the only thing noble quality nobility possesses.)

>>6394183
All you've read is obligatory highschool lit and you think you're ready for the final boss of literature? Jesus Christ, OP.

>>6394208
>the highschool trinity
kek'd heartily

>>6394209
>Though it could be a great experience if you do it now, and set you up for a lifetime of reading.
The thing if you're inexperienced like OP is that you'll be sent to the dictionary constantly. I would probably fucking hate that if I had to do it for 8 books in a row of the same series, not being able to make it half a page without looking up what something means

>>6394385
>the final boss of literature
Eh, it's really not that hard guys, you're overblowing it. Gravity's Rainbow or Ulysses is hard. ISOLT is just and winding. You basically just need a dictionary and your biggest attention span (if a new reader)

>>6394183
there is no such thing as free will, but whatever delusion gets you up in the morning I'll say go for it

on a related note, read some William James for philosophy

>>6394427
>sent to the dictionary constantly
>just need a dictionary

>2015
>not having an ereader where you just tap on a word to bring up definition and pronunciation, and later there is a game you can play that tests you on them

ishygddt

Personally I'm waiting until I have at least 10 more years of reading and experience under my belt, and until I'm fluent in French before I try to tackle Proust.

Same with Ulysses.

>>6394456
>tfw my kindle paper white doesn't let me get the definition of a word inside a definition

>>6394462
It's just a book, calm down spaz.

>>6394456
>>not having an ereader where you just tap on a word to bring up definition and pronunciation, and later there is a game you can play that tests you on them
Pampered cushy bullshit. None of the great writers in history have had this feature, why do I need it. The labor required to look up a word makes you want to memorize the definition in one go, and it usually works

And to quote Proust describing something, the book is like "an anesthetic with which to help one at last breathe"

>>6394482
None of the great writers in history had 4chan but yet here we are... do you read by candle light as well?

>>6394208
Gotta give him credit though, Siddhartha is no easy ready.

>>6394252
yeah, though be sure to get the enright revision. I read the moncrieff through and then went back and read the lydia davis translation of swann's way. her's was really good, i wish she had done the whole thing. you could read her swann and then switch over to moncrieff for the rest.

as for everyone in this thread acting like proust is so hard, it's just him lamenting having/not having a girlfriend and cool hundred-page dinner parties. it takes persistence but i think it would be cool to read it without having read a lot and comparing it to a reread after you had more experience with literature

>>6394496
I do actually

>>6394510
>siddhartha
>not easy

>>6394172
>i want to know what i'm getting into before dropping money and hours on something
Perpsective mang.

>>6394545
If it's considered a classic and stood the test of time it's worth reading. Most people just drop into the chance of watching a football game even not knowing the teams.

>>6394439
>Gravity's Rainbow or Ulysses is hard
so if I read these two, comprehend them, I will be a literary god?

>>6395460
No, just not a moron.

>>6395460

no, you'll be a twenty something who has read those books, like most twenty somethings who read

>>6395472
I'm an English major, 2nd year and I couldn't get past two pages of Ulysses without being hopelessly confused.

I highly doubt average 20 somethings can actually understand a single sentence in that book.

>>6395480

ayyy lmaoooo hahahaha

>>6394155
Just want you to know that if you are not reading this in French, you are wasting one of the greatest literature experiences of all time

>>6395480

Are you being serious right now? Really, truly for real?

>>6395480
>average /lit/ poster

>>6394155
i started reading it once but i didn't get far. but then i do that with a lot of books...

The Idiot
Steppenwolf
war and peace
brothers karamazov
great gatsby
...

I usually get further through a book than i did with proust before i stop reading though.

>>6395494
Virginia Woolf, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Joseph Conrad disagree

>>6395480
If you had said Finnegan's Wake I would probably agree even though that book is still really interesting but seriously? Ulysses isn't that complicated buddy. Calm down.

>>6394183
Nice troll

how about you read it and find out, you fucking faggot?

>>6395480
>stream of conciousness style
>difficult
cringeworthy. hit the blunt and then read it

>>6394155
>What am I in for?

Well first off, don't get the fucking Moncrieff translation. It ruins the book, making it more aristocratic and bloated than it already is.

Besides that, you are in for a long read. Some parts of the work I really enjoyed, but a lot of it I didn't. The way things are built up and connected is not worth it. When the book does make you remember things and connect the dots it is very satisfying but fuck it would not take that many metaphors to get there.

I only finished the first volume before leaving it, but really, do I need all of that convoluted religious history of the town of Combray? What exactly does that add to the work, especially the statues in the church and how they relate to that history?

Even if it did pay off in later volumes it didn't need to go about it in the way it did.

>>6397105
Dinner parties were the best

Also what other translation is there? The new-ish Penguin one sucks because it's a different translator each volume (Lydia Davis' Swann is GOAT).

>>6394155

A good nights sleep

>>6394155
Learn French first. Translation is impossible, and becomes less faithful to the beauty and meaning of the original text the higher the language used in the text. Proust is the greatest French novelist of all time, and may be the greatest novelist of all time. Don't waste your time with an imitation of greatness, OP.

>>6397134
or just read the mke translation like a non-autist

boring, tbh, but finishing the book does you a a lot if gois