Thread 24603671

Hello im a migrant from /v/ who wants to get into literature, specifically classic literature. /v/ has turned into mobile/gacha slop full of underagefags that the jannies there wont get rid of. I need to find a new hobby and i want some of /lit/s masterful recommendations

lay it on me

Start with Zork, frog.

>>24603671 (OP)
Start with fairy tale collections from around the world to get your brain accustomed to reading. I like Slavic and Arabic ones. Translating fairy tales is a relatively common linguistic and anthropological exercise so there's a wide and growing range to choose from.

>>24603671 (OP)
>classic literature.

Anon take your pic from these Iliad translations

One of the deaths, that of Deucalion, is set by translator Richmond Lattimore (1951) as follows: “Achilleus struck with the sword’s edge / at his neck, and swept the helmed head far away, and the marrow / gushed from the neckbone, and he went down to the ground at full length.” The translation of Robert Fagles (1990, arguably the modern standard before Wilson) has a similarly ornate edge: “Achilles chopped his neck / and his sword sent head and helmet flying off together / and marrow bubbling up from the clean-cut neckbone. / Down he went, his corpse full length on the ground.”

Wilson’s take is simpler, more unnerving: “Then with his sword / Achilles struck his neck and chopped his head off / and threw it far away, helmet and all. / The marrow burst out from the vertebrae. / The torso lay stretched out upon the ground” (20.626–30).

and chose Emily Wilson

>>24603671 (OP)
Start with the Greeks

>>24603727
Nooooooooooo not Wilsonposting

>>24603740
>>24603671 (OP)

which translation is best anon?

Iliad then Odyssey then Aeneid. Those and the Divine Comedy are the greatest of the great, although the last is pretty difficult to fully fathom. Beowulf is short and cool.

>>24603727
>and threw it far away
the other two translations don't have this ambiguity, they state the head flew off because of the sword strike, wilson's make it sound like after he cut it off he picked it up and chucked it. which is accurate? someone post us up the greek so we can investigate.

>>24603750
Any of them not written by a woman. I read Fagles and I liked it. Lattimore is also good.

>>24603671 (OP)
Don't start with the most dense and obscure classics or you'll lose momentum
The key to progress is steps, and building momentum

So start with something enjoyable. As much as I love it, don't start with the Iliad. These people are fronting.

>>24603765
There's literally only one written by a woman, you are clearly pretending to have knowledge of translations.

Granted, the translation is awful (read: dry and unpoetic). But still, be humble

>>24603777
>There's literally only one written by a woman
uhh caroline alexander?

>>24603760

>Wilson’s take is simpler, more unnerving

Start with the Horus Heresy

>>24603729
This.

>>24603671 (OP)
Greetings.
I have the feeling that most people recommend some pretty 'heavy' stuff for a starter. If you choose to read some of that, please don't get discouraged. It may be a pain in the ass to read some of that, but they can have a pretty heavy impact as a reward.

Depending on your definition of classic literature, I would recommend with some easy and maybe actual enjoyable stuff. Doesn't mean they can't have impact on you. F.e.:
>1984 by Orwell
>Stranger by Camus
>Lolita by Nabokov
>Brave new World by Huxley
>The Trial by Kafka

Probably about 80 % of the people here have read them and you could engage in a discussion about them pretty quickly.

read of mice and men by steinbeck, it's short, usually assigned in high school, and actually pretty good. gives u a quick win of an american canonical author.

>>24603750
Anyone not recommending Pope is a pseud. It’s the definitive translation. All modern translations are moneygrabs that sound like Facebook posts.

>>24603671 (OP)
Some actual answers anon, if you’re still here.

- Kafka’s Metamorphosis
- At the Mountains of Madness by HP Lovecraft
- The White People by Arthur Machen

These are shorter than novels, whimsical and engaging. They should successfully whet your whistle and condition your fat brain to reading.

- 1984 by Orwell
- American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
- Life for Sale by Mishima

Now you move up to novels. These are are easily digestible, engaging and will condition your brain even further. After this you can reading more seriously and dive into the canon.

For that, to begin with, I would recommend

- Montaigne’s Essays (read at random ones that sound interesting)
- Schopenhauer’s Parerga and Paralipomena (also essays - right about everything)
- Anna Karenina by Tolstoy (the greatest novel of all time)

You will not finish reading these three before you start to feel antsy and want to read other things too, which is fine. You can easily look up what books are considered part of the Western canon, from Greek philosophy up through Shakespeare to German philosophy and etc., and start reading whatever interests you. But this reading list should give you plenty to get started.

>>24603727
This faggot is memeing you btw. Emily Wilson is the reddit / tranny translation.

>>24603671 (OP)
I'm a former /v/tard myself, and I got started a while back with Phillip K. Dick, Roger Zelazny, and Gene Wolfe. They have very cool settings you can get immersed in, offer some substance to think about, and are pretty short and approachable. I'd only recommend starting with the Greeks once you've been habitually reading for a while, and until you get deeper in it doesn't matter that much what you're reading (provided it's somewhere above light novel translations or YA novels).

>>24603671 (OP)
i'd recommend some philosophy so you can introspect better.
you don't need a new hobby because /v/tards are now exclusively zoomers,
you need one because videogame studios have been bought up into monopolies and they don't make good videogames anymore.

>>24603780
Okay my bad lol, there's one Odyssey translator and two Iliad translators

>>24603727
>>24603750
>>24603760
>>24603765
>>24603870
"Achilles cut his head off with a blow from his sword and flung it helmet and all away from him, and the marrow came oozing out of his backbone as he lay." - Samuel Butler, prose translation

Prose mogs verse poetry for simple readability, and that's what OP needs to get started. Prose mogs verse poetry FOR ACCURATE TRANSLATION, and we wouldn't be in this mess with Emily Wilson if we hadn't forgotten that.

>Achilles then went up to Mulius and struck him on the ear with a spear, and the bronze spear-head came right out at the other ear. He also struck Echeclus son of Agenor on the head with his sword, which became warm with the blood, while death and stern fate closed the eyes of Echeclus. Next in order the bronze point of his spear wounded Deucalion in the fore-arm where the sinews of the elbow are united, whereon he waited Achilles' onset with his arm hanging down and death staring him in the face. Achilles cut his head off with a blow from his sword and flung it helmet and all away from him, and the marrow came oozing out of his backbone as he lay. He then went in pursuit of Rhigmus, noble son of Peires, who had come from fertile Thrace, and struck him through the middle with a spear which fixed itself in his belly, so that he fell headlong from his chariot. He also speared Areithous squire to Rhigmus in the back as he was turning his horses in flight, and thrust him from his chariot, while the horses were struck with panic.
>The Iliad, Book XX

>>24604434
First of all, you don't know what's the more accurate translation, or you would be reading it in Ancient Greek.
You just assume the modern translations are "more accurate" because they have nothing else going for them, they aren't poetic and don't sound good. But that's not a good enough reason to assume that. Pope could have been just as accurate but also so superior to a rando like Fagles that he translated it in verse.
IMO the most "readable" version of the Iliad is Edward the Earl of Derby's little known translation, in blank verse.

>>24604457
>Edward the Earl of Derby
He stood, till on his neck Achilles’ sword
Descending, shar’d, and flung afar, both head
And helmet; from the spine’s dissever’d joints
The marrow flow’d, as stretch’d in dust he lay.

>Alexander Pope
Full on his neck the falling faulchion sped,
From his broad shoulders hewed his crested head:
Forth from the bone the spinal marrow flies,
And sunk in dust the corpse extended lies.

Yeah... I think not.

Umineko

>>24603671 (OP)
Start with the Geeks

>>24603870
>Anyone not recommending Pope is a pseud.
STFU midwit

>>24604478
The problem is you fyi

>>24603727
If you’ve only read emily wilson’s translation you haven’t read the Iliad.

>>24603729
This but unironicaly

Gravity's Rainbow, Pynchon is the Kojima of literature

>>24603671 (OP)
gacha is a beautiful form of wish fulfillment literature and if you cant appreciate diverse forms of art i would suggest you make a poem about your frog and post it on /trash/

damn reading all those translations of achilles one-shotting trojans is giving me a manic energy boost fuck i might have to go for a run

>>24604764
wait can creatine give u energy cuz i just chugged a creatine infused protein shake idk man

>>24604768
believe it and it will be so

Having six versions of this is incredible, Everyone vote for your favorite


>Edward the Earl of Derby
He stood, till on his neck Achilles’ sword
Descending, shar’d, and flung afar, both head
And helmet; from the spine’s dissever’d joints
The marrow flow’d, as stretch’d in dust he lay.


>Alexander Pope
Full on his neck the falling faulchion sped,
From his broad shoulders hewed his crested head:
Forth from the bone the spinal marrow flies,
And sunk in dust the corpse extended lies.


>Butler
Achilles cut his head off with a blow from his sword and flung it helmet and all away from him, and the marrow came oozing out of his backbone as he lay.


>wilson
“Then with his sword / Achilles struck his neck and chopped his head off / and threw it far away, helmet and all. / The marrow burst out from the vertebrae. / The torso lay stretched out upon the ground”


>lattimore
Achilleus struck with the sword’s edge / at his neck, and swept the helmed head far away, and the marrow / gushed from the neckbone, and he went down to the ground at full length.”


>Fagles
“Achilles chopped his neck / and his sword sent head and helmet flying off together / and marrow bubbling up from the clean-cut neckbone. / Down he went, his corpse full length on the ground.”

>>24605049
Butler’s is so fucking dumb lol

>>24605049

Fagles first, but pope I've never read and am weirdly liking it.

>>24605049
In order of preference, for that particular passage
>Eddie
>Lattimore
>Wilson
>Pope
>Fag
>Buttler

>>24605049
Why didn't you do matching formatting?

>>24605049
LEAVING OUT CHAPMAN IS CRIMINAL

>>24603671 (OP)
Ok anon, “start with the Greeks” is a meme. Don’t fall for it. You can read the Greeks later on. I would recommend you read something that can pull you right into the story and get you engaged quickly. Something like:

Journey to the end of the night - Louis-Ferdinand Céline

The old man and the sea - Ernest Hemingway (it’s very short); or some of his short stories

Hunger - knut Hamsun (it’s for everyone, but if it’s for you, you’re going to love it)

Siddhartha - hermann hesse

>>24605801
*hunger is NOT for everyone

>>24603729
yeah OP read Medea. if you're used to low energy feminist video game stories, now you'll see what an actual cool woman is. also read the Argonautics for more of her

Nibelung.

>>24603671 (OP)
>Iliad and Odyssey (Pope)
>Aeneid (Dryden)
>Metamorphoses (Golding)
>Bible (KJV)
>Divine Comedy (Longfellow)
>Paradise Lost

>>24605055
Butler did a prose translation, not verse. It's actually highly readable. Seriously give it a shot you will not be disappointed.

>>24603671 (OP)
Start with this: >>>/his/17894874

>>24606087
see
>>24606931