Thread 24843666

When you cut away all the delusions, there really is only like 100 or so books that are rightfully considered essential to humanity. If people make it another 1000 years, they will still be reading these books because they contain an unwavering essence of truth. They can't be undermined in any meaningful way because they reflect the architecture of our ontology.

I know that's the ultimate goal for all of us whether some of you losers admit it or not. We wanna be important. We wanna write a book that people will hand down to their kids and grandkids.

How does one write a book like that?

>>24843666 (OP)
What would you say is the latest of these classic books to be written? Which year? Even though humanity keeps evolving, I wonder if the feelings or situations are classical. For example, man feeling irrelevant by AI, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

>>24843682
I'm probably not the one to give an unbiased opinion on recent monumental books. I tend to think 99% of all literature written in the past 20 years is hot garbage.

The past 50 years though, Infinite Jest obviously. The Rings of Saturn comes to mind, maybe Woodcutters as well.

>>24843666 (OP)
A good question, but those 100 books probably build on top of each other in some manner let’s say (not starting at the beginning)!Descartes to Locke and Newton. Locke and Newton to Hume. Hume to Kant. Kant (and Jakob Boehme) to Hegel, Fichte, Schelling. Schopenhauer then NEETzsche Marx Stirner up to Wittgenstein to Deleuze etc, study this evolution of refutations and affirmations. So, whoever you find to be the last important writer in your eyes, look, see where you disagree, see where you agree, or where you find their flaws in writing and accentuate on this and build upon this yourself. Give your own answer on whatever questions are postulated these doctrines in same goes for prose writers and their writing techniques. Subversion in literature is one of the many things that shape our being, though it may be hackneyed, every eminent writer seems to attempt to subvert the last. If there’s one thing many seem to have in common though, it’s their own unwavering dogmatism in search for objective knowledge (yet another facet of our ontological evolution). Goes without saying but this requires you to utilise your creativity to the best of your ability. Fortunately for me I’m not a writer however nor do I aspire to be so I don’t have to worry about all that haha!

>>24843756
Read the historical greats and find gaps in the land they covered. That sounds promising.

>>24843697
>Infinite Jest
>Unwanted essence of truth
>Essential to humanity
Lmao

>>24843697
Yeah, OP, >>24843778 << explain please.

>>24843783
explain what?

>>24843797
Infinite Jest constituting a list of literary works essential to the past 5000 years of humanity. I’m genuinely curious.

>>24843811
It's better than most of the other books written in those 5000 years.

>>24843772
I’m not one for brevity, i know. But that is how many prior to us began their journeys. Often it’s also viewing the zeitgeist through a unique or autistic lens that can also provide impetus for writing a book, like Infinite Jest as an example, if that interests you.

>>24843666 (OP)
Nobody knew they were writing a masterpiece while doing it. The author creates and only if it resonates with society, a hidden feeling or truth do we exalt it forever.

>>24843666 (OP)
It depends. There are technical books which people should read but I'm not sure if they fulfill the meaning of literature anymore. Reading Darwin or Euclid, you'll get a half true idea which with empirical trial and error we have refined, you're better off learning with a textbook. In contrast, Hobbes, Heidegger and the like discuss ideas which don't have an empirical basis, and they become unique sources of information which you must read. Poems and novels and plays are the easiest to place in such a list. The maximal list must be a few hundred books.

>>24844929
>Nobody knew they were writing a masterpiece while doing it
Thucydides blocks your path
>I have written my work, not as an essay which is to win the applause of the moment, but as a possession for all time.
>>24843666 (OP)
>only like 100 or so
giga-retarded

>>24845054
>>I have written my work, not as an essay which is to win the applause of the moment, but as a possession for all time.
What's the ratio of thinker's claiming such a thing to actually delivering?

You need to tap into something primal in a way no one did before. You need to harness that into an idea that speaks to people of your times but also at any other time as well
This is very rare. It must turn the story into mythology, and therefore it needs to work on multiple, potentially every level of meaning conceivable. People stumb upon these by accident.
I have been playing a lot of bloodborne lately

>>24843666 (OP)
>>24843756
>>24843772
Arendt/Strauss/Voegelin/Kojeve/Fukuyama/Thiel all straddle the post-war and post-cold war era and everything that came before and define where the world is and is going. If you want to write "that book" in either a fiction or nonfiction form they are the ones you must grapple with.

>>24843666 (OP)
> they will still be reading these books
Nah. The top 100 doesn’t even survive from 1850 to 1900 or from 1900 to 1950. You can find famous publishers trying to nail 100 must reads and they’re largely different. Top entries mid century are gone now.