Romance of the Three Kingdoms, written by Luo Guanzhong in the 14th century, is a historical novel set amidst the turbulent years near the end of the Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms era of Chinese history, starting in 169 and ending with the reunification of the land in 280.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
My favorite!
That sounds really interesting. I'll read it. Any recommendations for novels along this line?
>>2
You'd want to look at the greats.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Great_Classical_Novels
Okay, anyone here read that shit? I gave up on it when Dominique got raped and liked it.
Fuck Ayn Rand. Her characters suck.
It's been a few years, so not really.
Try googling "Ayn Rand Nathaniel Branden affair". No matter which side you choose to believe, it's a miserable sight.
I recommend you don't bother though, unless you also partake in the pointless activity of watching street bums yell at each other. Objectivists just use more grandiloquent language.
Ayn Raynd is an alien.
I just can't agree with Rand's Objectivist philosophy. I agree with some of her notions of ontology, but when she starts ragging on Kant and his Categorical Imperative, she crosses a line. Kant was a g, straight up.
Kant's categorical imperative is unrealistic. For example, prohibiting lying under all circumstances, even if it was to save a life, or basically ascribing to an imperative, to an 'ought,' without a purpose. Clearly, Kant's deontology is so far removed from human nature which relies on purposes, goals, and ambitions. Rand saw this and rightfully ascribed self-interest as the moral imperative, and not some vague 'ought.'
I must say, I am quite shocked at the conduct of the people posting here. There is not one single claim that is backed up in any way. It is simply not enough to assert that "Rand is bad because of X, and X is just a self evident truth", yet this is precisely the form of so many of the arguments here! That is a logical fallacy. There must be a reason WHY x is bad. For example, people have asserted that a work of fiction is bad because no one in their personal lives act like the novels' characters. Yet, they make no attempt to back why this makes it bad, just leaving it up in the air, a hanging non-sequitur. The rest of you seem perfectly fine to keep up this charade and prop up this evasion. Even if you agree with the ideas presented here, by not calling them out on their irrational form, you are giving them sanction? Don't you know how this looks? I'm sure you people would like to expect more from yourselves than this.
and I for one am quite shocked at how people here write baseless fan-fiction about Kant.
I mean no offence >>42, but one has to wonder whether you ever read a single line of Kant in full. Kant very much acknowledges human nature as what it is; however the Categorical Imperative's primary purpose is to liberate people from reliance on an external authority (God, Scripture, Tradition, Priesthood, Monarchs) when it comes to judging one's own actions as to whether they are morally "good" or "bad": By applying the Categorical Imperative to your own actions, he asserts, you can find out whether they are morally flawed or not, by yourself, instead of having someone else impose their judgment upon you (sapere aude!). How so? Because the Categorical Imperative is an effective logical apparatus to judge whether an action will benefit you and the social group around you. Seeing how man very much operates as a zoon politikon, that ends up being less unrealistic than the reductionist Randian self-interest as a moral imperative. Kant may seem naive at first glance, but he was well aware of "how the world works", videlicet "Towards Eternal Peace"...
No, Kant's imperative is irrational. In his article 'On a Supposed Right to Lie from Altruistic Motives' (http://caae.phil.cmu.edu/cavalier/80130/part1/sect4/lie.html), he was in favor of Absolute Principles (e.g. never lie) regardless of the context of reality.
Rand saw Kant as a destroyer of reason, reason being the thought process required for understanding reality. Since Kant's imperative departs from reality, Kant's ethics are unsound.
Master and Margarita... Mikhail Bulgakov
Both Rand and Kant are stupid. They each tell you that you don't have to rely on authority, yet they presuppose having authority to tell you that. This is also why relativism is not true.
Also, spoiler for every Rand book: They include mediocre plots and Mary Sue characters that are used as Rand's mouthpieces. Least thinly veiled books ever.
I'll start off with:
>>44
Because we like to form our own opinion? Because we have taste and like to use it and not just like or dislike what we're told to?
To follow up on the metaphor, because we had been told a lot of people dislike fish, we didn't like the smell of fish, but we had to take a bite just to be sure that, yeah okay, we don't like fish. And when I say just a bite it means I couldn't even finish the first book, that's how bad it was (to me).
twighlight sucks. thats it. end of story. oookaayyyy??
fucking Twilight vampires need to meet my black hominis nocturna killer friend, Blade
If you're ever on a date with a girl and you learn she's read all the books and watched the movies five time each... run.
Twlight is to women what Star Trek is to men.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojGmVILD54g
We are Anonymous
We are Legion
We do not forgive
We do not forget
Expect us
Stephenie Meyer is an idiot. My main problem with the series is the plot holes...oh dear God so many potholes...
Not only the question of why do vampires, particularly Jasper who has very limited self-control insist on going to high school over and o ver? They go on about how hard they work to keep their existence secret and yet on Bella's first day, her new friend could tell her ALL about the Cullens, even mentioning the weird incestuous relationships they seem to have...yeah, way to remain inconspicuous by behaving moodily and blatantly groping up what you're trying to pass off as your SIBLING in the middle of a crowded cafeteria. Also they insist on having the most expensive stuff which just reeks of New Money Meyer fapping away over her new fortune.
There are millions of other errors in the books as well. I find it harder to find parts of the book that are factually and logically correct.
>>50 the problem is not Stephenie Meyer, but her readership.
More to the point, why did you read several of her books? One was not enough to get the picture?
>>51
I wonder that as well. The first two or three pages was enough to make me vomit.
I think stephenie Meyer is a problem seeing as without her fail of a book there wouldnt even be a readership convinced a dead guy watching them sleep is fantastic. I don't believe you can comment on how terrible a series is if you haven't read it. That's common sense, especially when the first reaction from twi hards is "if u just reed it u wil get it!!"
I was given new moon for a birthday gift and after reading five pages I threw it across the room and left it there, then I heard the media buzz and realised new moon was from that series and thought "surely not...that was awful, I must be mistaken". So I went back and read them because I wanted to understand why they were so popular. I still don't.
I'm Japanese university student. I'd like to hear that American students are doing for their future. Everything ok. Please tell me something.
I am sorry for the delay in my response.
I want to remedy injustice too.
But, I think it is so difficult to directly corrupt politic.
So, I'll indirectly remedy the world's injustice by using Internet.
I think I can do it, because now we can redistribute various education to the world by using e-learning.
In the larger community, We should think that we have learned at university.
4wJblYt5 is my Mac PC'ID.
IN7Mnwi3 is my Windows ID.
I am too poor to go to a college or University. I wish I could be an English teacher in Japan.
I'm a high school student, planning on majoring in literature and going into writing for novels, news, and possibly even games
either that or a coroner (死因裁判官) I hope the kanji is the same in japanese, I've learned a little bit, but I mostly rely on my Chinese for my kanji
You can do it.
Now in Japan, it is said Japanese people have to study English more.
So, there are many chances to get English teacher.
I find a chance.
This is one way to work in Japan.
If other people want to work in Japan too, let's check this URL!
I find a chance.
This is one way to work in Japan.
If other people want to work in Japan too, let's check this URL!
>>13
Here I will copy/paste the some of the school prices.
Chiyoda -near electric town
year= 724,500.00 JPY = 8,977.91 USD
6mths= 399,000.00 JPY = 4,913.19 USD
Yoshida -beatiful building -second cheapest
year= 706,100.00 JPY = 8,694.74 USD
6mths= 410,100.00 JPY = 5,049.87 USD
3mths= 148,050.00 JPY = 1,823.05 USD
System Toyo Gaiyo -cheapest
year= 684,600.00 JPY = 8,430.00 USD
6mths= 394,800.00 JPY = 4,861.47 USD
>>13 Oh woops.
I am >>14. What I mean to post was Thank you for that link. And I also found this site that helps you get into Japanese learning schools.
http://gogonihon.com/en/learn-japanese-study-in-japan
And then I converted the prices for most of the school into USD in>>14.
There. Done.
A little slow off the mark here, but library.nu was recently taken down:
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/02/2012227143813304790.html
(Its old domain names--ebooksclub.org and gigapedia.com--redirect to this article)
It was a fantastic website that hosted hundreds of thousands of high-quality textbooks. Given the paywalls and high markup of academic content, this is a pretty huge blow to students and NEETs alike.
How do you guys feel about this? I am actually very upset. It's like a modern burning of the Library of Alexandria.
This makes me rather furious. However I still have hope for the remaining repositories - ebookee.net and freebookspot.es for instance.
Nobody can keep college professors and professional textbook writers from putting out a new edition every semester with one word changed so that the students have to pay 100 dollars more. Fuck these guys.
I attended college somewhere overseas, and over there, nobody gives a shit about copyright. Everyone with any brains goes to get their textbooks at the copy shop for one tenth the price. Sure, there might be some pages missing, but it's better than buying the full price book.
> Everyone with any brains goes to get their textbooks at the copy shop for one tenth the price. Sure, there might be some pages missing, but it's better than buying the full price book.
I like that. It sounds fun.
When I was at university I just used the library for everything, so actually buying textbooks was never an issue for me. This just made me think it's more unfair though. Universities can afford the high prices for books anyway, so it really is just the students and hobbyists who suffer.
I'm saddened they shut this resource down. But one day maybe the laws can be altered to allow the freedom of literary information.
I'd never even heard of it until after it was taken down.
I been looking to open up to new things ( regarding literature), and wanted to know about some good titles. :)
What are you interested in? What have been good reads for you, so far?
>>2
He wants us to divine his tastes. Let's do this.
Okay.
3... 2... 1...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY! CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, THE IDIOT, THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV! LARRY NIVEN! A WORLD OUT OF TIME, THE INTEGRAL TREES, THE SMOKE RING! STEPHEN BAXTER! MANIFOLD TIME, THE RING, VACUUM DIAGRAMS! GO!
Well, I second Dostoyevsky, and would start with the Brothers Karamasov (my favorite band of brothers). On the other hand, if you want a quick read from old Dosto, check out Letters from the Underground, a foundational novel.
Other suggestions would be Metamorphosis (Kafka), haikus from Basho and Issa, The Meditations (Marcus Aurelius), On the Road (Kerouac), Foucault's Pendulum (Eco), One Hundred Years of Solitude (Garcia Márquez), At the Mountains of Madness (Lovecraft), Princes of Amber (Zelazny), etc...
Hey 4-ch, just wondering if any of you feel like reading or submitting content to the literature zine I help manage.
http://www.theaprilreader.org/ is our site, we're pretty new but are growing steadily.
Our Mission Statement: "The April Reader is a monthly publication of poetry, prose, and other user-submitted content. Initially conceived as a successor publication to the now-defunct Zine Writers Guild, The April Reader aims to become a
hub of online writing and content. Operating under the belief that the rise of the internet has allowed the written word to regain parity with mass media and television, The April Reader hopes to serve as a launching point for the future writers of this generation"
Not bad, eh? If any of you feel like submitting content to us, our email us theaprilreader@gmail.com. We're non-profit, so don't expect high submission requirements or money in return.
Thanks for your time
Just read the TAR issue 4 story on the parrot with the attached penis. RAD!
It's the frist of November and the annual National Novel Writing Month has begun! Who, other than me, is competing?
Seems nobody. Myself I am very busy with grad school.
Oh hey. I'm doing it. I'm at 33300 words. I basically just keep up with the cumulative count. I haven't been more than a few hundred words or so off. Less than two weeks to go!
bumping in case anyone is doing it this year. I'm at 7000 words so far.
What if you had been working on a project for years and were somehow unaware that there was such a thing as this month. By which I mean November. You could make it like a Groundhog Day thing or alternate universe with only eleven months in the year... Seriously, though...
What if you had been working on a novel for years and found yourself done with it at the end of November? You'd get lost in a sea of hipster girls trying to sell their novels about how they wrote a novel (or whatever it is these stories end up being and my other guess is Twilight clones).
I'd hate to be a literary agent on the first of December, is all I'm saying...
I'd finish a novel if I weren't so damned lazy with words. Poetry and short stories are more my thing.
Novels strike me as excessive. Much better to write a tightly controlled short story
Did you know that there is a story by Haruki Murakami in this week's New Yorker? (feb. 13-20)
I won't spoil it for you, but I can see how someone would hate him now!
>>52
I'm nearly the opposite; I've only read Norwegian Wood and a few of his short stories. I've heard that Norwegian Wood is his most realistic novel, and that it departs from his more Kafka-esque works.
Also, the dorm in Norwegian Wood is based on Wakeijuku, a real orgnaization with a little compound and a collection of dormitories for young men going to college, located in Bunkyo-ku in Tokyo. I stayed there for a year. It was super lulzy for me reading about it in Norwegian Wood, even though Murakami exaggerated some parts, and even though Murakami stayed there (he did) years before I did (e.g., there was never anybody raising or lowering the Japanese flag to the national anthem while I was there). The most accurate part about that place was the dirtiness of the rooms...so fucking dirty
>>53
I'm Japanese.
I think some sort of thing that represents the national anthem is going away nationally. We Japanese people can imagine that scene easily because that was everyday routine before. Maybe it had been true roughly, even Murakami remade it a little.
I personally love Murakami, he is probably one of my favourite authors. I've read most of his books and am looking for similar authors. So far on my list of books to read are:
Hotel Iris
The Crimson Labyrinth
Salmonella Men on Planet Porno
If you can recommend any others, please do!
>Hotel Iris
>If you can recommend any others, please do!
Also by Yoko Ogawa: The Diving Pool. A must-read.
>>52
Metamorphosis was totally metaphors and shit. I personally feel it was about the inhumanity of living your life exclusively for work. But I had a Lit teacher who made a pretty compelling argument about how Gregor Samsa wants to fuck his sister.
Anybody read 1Q84 yet?
Maybe I'll read some of these books. I got a nice new nook for Christmas so ebooks are a bit more pleasant to read.