/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.17074169]

What's the most beautiful book you've read?

[Anonymous No.17074179]

>>17074169
dracula

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!oI3er5KKetj No.17074187]

[Anonymous No.17074192]

>>17074169
Beautiful woman; beautiful poem

[Anonymous No.17074265]

The secret history has the juiciest prose, it's like tender, juicy chicken, it's so tasty you wanna savor every word

[Anonymous No.17074266]

[Anonymous No.17074312]

Blood meridian

[Anonymous No.17074512]

Keat's poetical works

[Anonymous No.17074612]

>>17074169
Titus Alone

[Anonymous No.17074627]

Beckett Texts For Nothing

[Anonymous No.17074630]

My diary desu

[Anonymous No.17074740]

>>17074312
pleb

[Anonymous No.17075185]

The Way of the Pilgrim

[Anonymous No.17075609]

>>17074169
Renegade Immortal by Er Gen

[Anonymous No.17075617]

>>17074630
post a sample desu

for me its Infinite Jest

[Anonymous No.17075626]

>>17074192
A very pretty poem, Ms. Wilson, but you mustn't call it Homer.

[Anonymous No.17075631]

>>17074169
NOS

[Anonymous No.17075633]

The doll

[Anonymous No.17075635]

>>17075626
based popeposter

[Anonymous No.17075741]

>>17074169
I have a few contenders

>Flaubert- Salammbo
I think this book wins for pure prose exhibition
>Des lignes de fleurs blanches, toutes se suivant une à une, décrivaient sur la terre couleur
d'azur de longues paraboles, comme des fusées d'étoiles. Les buissons, pleins de ténèbres, exhalaient des odeurs chaudes, mielleuses. Il y avait des troncs d'arbre barbouillés de cinabre, qui ressemblaient à des colonnes sanglantes. Au milieu, douze piédestaux de cuivre portaient chacun une grosse boule de verre, et des lueurs rougeâtres emplissaient confusément ces globes creux, comme d'énormes prunelles qui palpiteraient encore. Les soldats s'éclairaient avec des torches, tout en trébuchant sur la pente du terrain, profondément labouré.
>Mais ils aperçurent un petit lac, divisé en plusieurs bassins par des murailles de pierres bleues. L'onde était si limpide que les flammes des torches tremblaient jusqu'au fond, sur un lit de cailloux blancs et de poussière d'or. Elle se mit à bouillonner, des paillettes lumineuses glissèrent, et de gros poissons, qui portaient des pierreries à la gueule, apparurent vers la surface.

>Proust- Recherche
It is a runner-up in prose and superior in terms of the specific images and concepts
> Quelquefois le temps était tout à fait gâté, il fallait rentrer et rester enfermé dans la maison. Çà et là au loin dans la campagne que l'obscurité et l'humidité faisaient ressembler à la mer, des maisons isolées, accrochées au flanc d'une colline plongée dans la nuit et dans l'eau, brillaient comme des petits bateaux qui ont replié leurs voiles et sont immobiles au large pour toute la nuit. Mais qu'importait la pluie, qu'importait l'orage ! L'été, le mauvais temps n'est qu'une humeur passagère, superficielle, du beau temps sous−jacent et fixe, bien différent du beau temps instable et fluide de l'hiver, et qui, au contraire, installé sur la terre où il s'est solidifié en denses feuillages sur lesquels la pluie peut s'égoutter sans compromettre la résistance de leur permanente joie, a hissé pour toute la saison, jusque dans les rues du village, aux murs des maisons et des jardins, ses pavillons de soie violette ou blanche. Assis dans le petit salon, où j'attendais l'heure du dîner en lisant, j'entendais l'eau dégoutter de nos marronniers, mais je savais que l'averse ne faisait que vernir leurs feuilles et qu'ils promettaient de demeurer là, comme des gages de l'été, toute la nuit pluvieuse, à assurer la continuité du beau temps ; qu'il avait beau pleuvoir, demain, au−dessus de la barrière blanche de Tansonville, onduleraient, aussi nombreuses, de petites feuilles en forme de coeur ; et c'est sans tristesse que j'apercevais le peuplier de la rue des Perchamps adresser à l'orage des supplications et des salutations désespérées ; c'est sans tristesse que j'entendais au fond du jardin les derniers roulements du tonnerre roucouler dans les lilas.

[Anonymous No.17075749]

>>17075741
>Lermontov- Hero of our times
I think he might actually be a more gifted writer than Flaubert but he is not focused outright on beauty apart from a few passages
>Meждy тeм чaй был выпит; дaвнo зaпpяжeнныe кoни пpoдpoгли нa cнeгy; мecяц блeднeл нa зaпaдe и гoтoв yж был пoгpyзитьcя в чepныe cвoи тyчи, виcящиe нa дaльних вepшинaх, кaк клoчки paзoдpaннoгo зaнaвeca; мы вышли из caкли. Boпpeки пpeдcкaзaнию мoeгo cпyтникa, пoгoдa пpoяcнилacь и oбeщaлa нaм тихoe yтpo; хopoвoды звeзд чyдными yзopaми cплeтaлиcь нa дaлeкoм нeбocклoнe и oднa зa дpyгoю гacли пo мepe тoгo, кaк блeднoвaтый oтблecк вocтoкa paзливaлcя пo тeмнo-лилoвoмy cвoдy, oзapяя пocтeпeннo кpyтыe oтлoгocти гop, пoкpытыe дeвcтвeнными cнeгaми. Haпpaвo и нaлeвo чepнeли мpaчныe, тaинcтвeнныe пpoпacти, и тyмaны, клyбяcь и извивaяcь, кaк змeи, cпoлзaли тyдa пo мopщинaм coceдних cкaл, бyдтo чyвcтвyя и пyгaяcь пpиближeния дня.

>F Scott Fitzgerald: The great gatsby
the end of this book is pretty much the most impressive finishing flourish I've ever read
>If that was true he must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream. He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass. A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about . . . like that ashen, fantastic figure gliding toward him through the amorphous trees.
>And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.
>Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning—
>So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

runner up is that famous Joyce passage in The Dead

[Anonymous No.17075752]

>>17075749
A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again.
He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time
had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

[Anonymous No.17076143]

>>17074312
oh boy

[Anonymous No.17076233]

The Crossing

[Anonymous No.17076277]

>>17076233
“He told the boy that although he was huérfano still he must cease his wanderings and make for himself some place in the world because to wander in this way would become for him a passion and by this passion he would become estranged from men and so ultimately from himself. He said that the world could only be known as it existed in men's hearts. For while it seemed a place which contained men it was in reality a place contained within them and therefore to know it one must look there and come to know those hearts and to do this one must live with men and not simply pass among them. He said that while the huérfano might feel that he no longer belonged among men he must set this feeling aside for he contained within him a largeness of spirit which men could see and that men would wish to know him and that the world would need him even as he needed the world for they were one. Lastly he said that while this itself was a good thing like all good things it was also a danger. Then he removed his hands from the boy's saddle and stepped away and stood. The boy thanked him for his words but he said that he was in fact not an orphan and then he thanked the women standing there and turned the horse and rode out. They stood watching him go. As he passed the last of the brush wickiups he turned and looked back and as he did so the old man called out to him. Eres, he said. Eres huérfano.”

[Anonymous No.17076312]

>>17075741
>Proust- Recherche
It is a runner-up in prose and superior in terms of the specific images and concepts

Based, me too. Which one was your favorite book? Mine was the second, probabily one of the best work I've ever read. Also, I suggest to you the works of Bassani (expecially The Garden of Finzi-Contini). He's italian like me, but for some aspects he's kinda similar to Proust.

[Anonymous No.17076326]

>>17074169
Vladimir Nabokov -- The Gift

[Anonymous No.17076336]

The Master and Margarita

[Anonymous No.17076364]

>>17074169
Shakespeare -- Hamlet or Antony and Cleopatra

-or-

Proust -- In Search of Lost Time

Runners-up:

Joyce -- Ulysses

Mervyn Peake -- Gormenghast

John Crowley -- Little, Big or Love and Sleep

Mark Helprin -- Winter's Tale

[Anonymous No.17076516]

>>17076277
Disingenuous. That passage is the omniscient narrator translating a native American's Spanish. On top of that, his tribe was largely cutoff from proper Mexican settlements and probably spoke limited amount of Spanish.

[Anonymous No.17076689]

>>17074169
The Grapes of Wrath

[Anonymous No.17077340]

>>17076516
This is what critical theory does to the mind.

I see two men having a deep spiritual dialogue through a short exchange, revealed to us by the narrator. The old man tries to bestow a lifetime worth of wisdom about man's place in the world of men and the boy, typical of youth, misunderstands the lesson due to his literalism. The boy is an orphan in that he is alone or abandoned in spirit. He may even understand what the old man means but brushes the question aside by denying the literal interpretation.

I understand what you are getting at, but you are objecting to a too literal interpretation of the characters and the context of their interaction.

[Anonymous No.17077354]

Samurai's Garden

[Anonymous No.17077394]

McCarthy revisits this theme a lot in his novels, about the spiritual unity of men and how we defile and degrade all men through the abuse of ourselves. Suttree tells the rag picker something along the same lines after finding the man dead and degraded by his poverty and humble surroundings.

"You have no right to represent people this way, he said. A man is all men. You have no right to your wretchedness."

[Anonymous No.17077469]

moby dick

[Anonymous No.17077519]

For Whom the Bells Toll