Literature - Wapchan

Name
Email
Subject	Spoiler Image
Comment
File	Upload Info 3 files max, 25MB limit Images: JPG, JPEG, BMP, GIF, PNG, WEBP Video: MP4, WEBM (note that the video stream must come first) Audio: MP3, OGG Text: TXT, EPUB, PDF Flash: SWF Please use catbox for larger files
Embed
Password	(For file deletion.)

File: 1745614156384.jpg (78.01 KB, 550x830, 18682-716283897.jpg)

ON: THE REAL LIFE OF SEBASTIAN KNIGHT BY VLADIMIR NABOKOV anon 4/25/25 (Fri) 20:49:16 No.266 [Reply]

What a wonderful piece of literature. For his first English novel, he did a fantastic job building his prose around the death of a writer. Everything in this book flows beautifully and every single line is well thought out and greatly coordinated. Great care was taken to make the reader be beside the main character of this story, as if you were following him through his journey to find out more about his brother (Sebastian Knight) and seeing him fit pieces of the puzzle that is his life. The wit is immense and hilariously funny, the ending being one of wit and of sadness. A must read, I highly recommend it.

anon 4/25/25 (Fri) 20:50:33 No.267

>>266
"Poor Knight! he really had two periods, the first -a dull man writing broken English, the second -a broken man writing dull English"

File: 1716011162828.png (1.45 MB, 768x1162, bb1dd61bdf27240ac15a3dc061….png)

ITT Post Poems anon 5/18/24 (Sat) 05:46:02 No.55 [Reply]

A jug of wine among the blossoms,
I drink alone with no companion.
I raise my cup to invite the moon to join me;
my shadow opposite me will make three of us.
But the moon knows nothing of drinking
and my shadow uselessly follows my body.
For now I'll make do with moon and shadow as companions;
if I'm going to enjoy myself I must do it while spring is still here.
When I sing and wag my head the moon moves to and fro;
when I dance my shadow breaks and scatters.
While I'm still sober let's have fun together;
when I wake up after I've been drunk we'll each go our own way.
So let's join in a friendship without emotion
and make a date in the distant Milky Way.

- Li Bai

2 posts and 1 image reply omitted. Click reply to view.

anon 1/6/25 (Mon) 02:16:45 No.112

File: 1736129805475.jpg (68.27 KB, 1080x1439, 1506e8a4f4892e924dda22c4b1….jpg)

Love me
I just want to be loved
I don't care who is
male or female

Whether he is the most virtuous of all beings on earth or the most cruel and vile human that gives him the title of hell of this world

As long as he fills me
I will accept him
As long as he loves me I will accept him
Therefore love me

anon 1/31/25 (Fri) 07:29:29 No.129

File: 1738308545498.jpg (582.73 KB, 2044x1500, 4.jpg)

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Post too long. Click here to view the full text.

anon 4/4/25 (Fri) 00:19:34 No.137

>>136
I accidentally hit the button while typing ;-;

Go, and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me, where all past years are,
Or who cleft the Devil's foot,
Teach me to hear Mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy's stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.

If thou beest born to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Post too long. Click here to view the full text.

anon 4/18/25 (Fri) 20:35:11 No.224

File: 1745008511002.jpg (351.7 KB, 2024x2481, 1744357139154799.jpg)

>>55
A poem that perfectly encapsulates the modern world, approaching the spiritual idealism of a Schiller.

THERE is a bondage worse, far worse, to bear
Than his who breathes, by roof, and floor, and wall,
Pent in, a Tyrant's solitary Thrall:
'Tis his who walks about in the open air,
One of a Nation who, henceforth, must wear
Their fetters in their souls. For who could be,
Who, even the best, in such condition, free
From self-reproach, reproach that he must share
With Human-nature? Never be it ours
To see the sun how brightly it will shine,
And know that noble feelings, manly powers,
Instead of gathering strength, must droop and pine;
Post too long. Click here to view the full text.

anon 4/25/25 (Fri) 02:39:29 No.252

File: 1745548769184.jpg (80.59 KB, 808x1020, 0_vRBoLKF_8EVzcO-i.jpg)

THE LOGICAL CONCLUSION

When earth's last thesis is copied
From the theses that went before,
When idea from fact has departed
And bare-boned factlets shall bore,
When all joy shall have fled from study
And scholarship reign supreme;
When truth shall 'baaa' on the hill crests
And no one shall dare to dream;

When all the good poems have been buried
With comment annoted in full
And art shall bow down in homage
To scholarship's zinc-plated bull,
Post too long. Click here to view the full text.

Book share thread anon 5/12/24 (Sun) 18:55:28 No.50 [Reply]

Share books, pdfs, epub etc. sharing is caring.

3 posts and 4 image replies omitted. Click reply to view.

anon 7/9/24 (Tue) 19:56:30 No.75

>>74
It's an obvious bot post, but you clearly don't know how to read the thread. Why are you posting manga on a literature board?

anon 7/10/24 (Wed) 17:16:47 No.76

File: 1720631807084.pdf (33.01 MB, Lolita,VladimirNabokov.pdf)

Manga isn't lit? I-It has pages... FINE! Here's a book!

Foundation of the loli genre. Enjoy.

anon 4/23/25 (Wed) 22:03:13 No.245

File: 1745445793641.pdf (1.25 MB, book pdf.pdf)

VIRGIN TERRITORY:
50 Years Without Sex. My Life As An Involuntary Virgin
By
Timothy Draper. its the bibliography of a loveshy user, he posted the pdf on the site, but I will upload here in case if anyone wants to. While I did enjoyed reading his book, there are many parts that made me feel depressed. I also got a bit frustated by the author stubborn behaviour, he would repeat the same mistake, again and again and he was too much of a beta

anon 4/24/25 (Thu) 05:30:49 No.246

>>73
Oh boy, another reading list put together by someone who hasn't even read 99% of the stuff on it

anon 4/24/25 (Thu) 05:32:22 No.247

>>246
Almost every big general reading list will have stuff the list's creator hasn't read, but I object to lists where it's obvious the creator just threw a bunch of shit together.

File: 1744741243824.png (2.34 MB, 1920x1080, dddhonf4p64d1.png)

anon 4/15/25 (Tue) 18:20:44 No.180 [Reply]

Now that 4chan is down, why aren't WAPists interested in literature? Not a SINGLE new post.

10 posts and 1 image reply omitted. Click reply to view.

anon 4/19/25 (Sat) 09:06:35 No.229

>>228

anon 4/19/25 (Sat) 09:07:40 No.230

>>228
I don't understand, why can't you just make a thread about a book you read?

anon 4/19/25 (Sat) 13:09:14 No.231

File: 1745068153891.jpg (140.92 KB, 931x720, castinlibrary.jpg)

>>230
What would be the point? More specifically, what would the contribution be to the board if I were to do that? It's unlikely anyone else on here has read a particular book I have read on here, so there would be nothing to share in that way, and there is no market for people to hear the themes of a book they don't know nor care about. It would be a shot in the dark for any specific book I have read to appeal to the demographics of the board. I don't believe any discussion would come from posting like this, and there would be no point in posting my thoughts on a public platform knowing that no conversation would be spurred by it - I have a diary for thoughts like that. It would be rude of me to fill a board with dialogue that contributes nothing to the overall conversation. I could make a thread about whatever I wanted to bookwise here, but it would be inconsiderate of me to vomit whatever I wanted to without regard. No existing thread fills this niche, neither - the "what book are you reading?" thread is a place to talk about books and not about themes. It's a "Brown's Inferno is a cool book about racing to stop a virus outbreak" thread and not a "Brown's Inferno is a cool book that deals with themes of belonging and anonymity" kind of thread.

I don't want to seem like I am talking down on the threads here or on any other /lit/ board (and I do mean to apply all of this generally.) I really enjoy reading what everyone has to say about everything, and one of the wonderful things about internet boards like this is that I am introduced to so many wonderful books and genres that I likely would not have found on my own. It is simply not the kind of place I post. I also am not a very creative person, and so can't contribute to the Poems thread and such. I'm not particularly grieved by this, it's simply the reason I don't post.

Now that I have sat here and thought about it, perhaps a book review thread would be nice to have around here.

anon 4/19/25 (Sat) 14:51:49 No.232

>>231
Talking about books is not rocket science, who cares if others haven't read the book. At least you did something instead of complain. Please just post something that isn't you worrying about made up problems. I don't give a shit if you aren't a "creative" person. Just post something fun. Please. You could've put all that effort into a simple but fun book review.

anon 4/19/25 (Sat) 15:10:42 No.233

>>231
Im always looking for good book recommendations so i always check the /lit/ boards. Im not as well read as most of the anons itt but reading about a certain book might encourage me to check it out, so your posts are not in vain. I think you are just taking things too seriously, write whatever you want and chances are someone somewhere will engage with it.thats pretty much every creative endeavor.

File: 1744726807071.jpg (74.1 KB, 662x1000, adamsbio2.jpg)

Nonfiction anon 4/15/25 (Tue) 14:20:07 No.178 [Reply]

Is there space for nonfiction on /lit/?
Share what you're reading!

I'm currently going through a biography on John Adams (pic related). I'm only at the beginning, but I find him to be a very relatable character, filled with self doubts.
I'm also concurrently reading a biography of Mao Zedong in preparation for the upcoming Chinese Century.

anon 4/15/25 (Tue) 18:09:16 No.179

File: 1744740556233.jpg (94.74 KB, 813x1205, 61B3sjZZfWL._SL1205_-40926….jpg)

On Suicide Bombing by Talal Asad.
Its not about suicide bombers themselves, but a cultural analysis of Western liberals and how they react to what they call terrorism. The book presents some arguments that are disturbing and hard to swallow. Difficult read.

anon 4/16/25 (Wed) 07:43:18 No.209

I've felt motivated to reread Democracy The God That Failed. It's still probably the best chud book ever made

anon 4/17/25 (Thu) 20:26:07 No.220

File: 1744921567025.png (642.66 KB, 1200x600, ClipboardImage.png)

>>209
IMO you should read "A Short History of Man" by the same author instead, if you haven't already; it's almost as good as "Democracy: the God that failed".

File: 1744856139126.jpg (127.2 KB, 808x1230, dddddddd.jpg)

Audiobook general anon 4/17/25 (Thu) 02:15:39 No.213 [Reply]

What you listening to?

anon 4/17/25 (Thu) 12:40:40 No.217

>>213
I like the Great Courses too my good sir, I'm listening (and watching) to How to Listen and Understand Great Music by Robert Greenberg. I don't like how he spergs out against certain germans and seems to excuse some fucked up Jewish individuals; but otherwise it's very good.
I'm also listening to Journey to the End of the Night by Céline. So far so good, it had its great moments but I have to keep reading. Hopefully it's better than War, it's the only other Céline book I read and I wasn't a fan.

File: 1744773931296.jpg (132.63 KB, 816x1218, onpalmwine.jpg)

African /lit/ anon 4/16/25 (Wed) 03:25:31 No.202 [Reply]

Post any African literature you have read. I'll start. The Palm-Wine Drinkard by Amos Tutuola. A fantastic piece of African magical realism. One of the most surrealist pieces one could ever read.

Here's a favorite line from the book:

"Now by that time and before we entered inside the white tree, we had ‘sold our death’ to somebody at the door for the sum of £70: I8:6d and ‘lent our fear’ to somebody at the door as well on interest of £3:I0:0d per month, so we did not care about death and we did not fear again."

anon 4/16/25 (Wed) 04:00:54 No.207

File: 1744776054408.png (433.92 KB, 1270x827, Palm-wine-2141532564.png)

>>202
Yummy drink!

anon 4/16/25 (Wed) 08:49:11 No.210

File: 1744793351126.jpg (738.18 KB, 751x1175, 9780141935317-1315399183.jpg)

Picrel is a good read. Also acts as an interesting introduction of African anthropolgy, as well. >>202

anon 4/16/25 (Wed) 08:51:47 No.211

>>210
Although it's worth noting that it isn't written by Africans and the myths are largely taken from anthropolgy papers. It gives a very good insight into Pagan African culture and how migrations and hunter-gatherer cultures really shaped the continent.

anon 4/16/25 (Wed) 20:59:17 No.212

>>210
Thanks for the suggestion anon. I'll go find it in the wild and get my hands on a copy. African paganism has some of the strangest stories that I would love to read.

File: 1724283354110.jpg (55.48 KB, 474x711, th-1598903938.jpg)

Do VNs count as lit? anon 8/21/24 (Wed) 23:35:54 No.82 [Reply]

Well.... do they? What even is the definition of literature anyway?

13 posts and 1 image reply omitted. Click reply to view.

figamin ## sysop 9/6/24 (Fri) 19:05:27 No.98

>>97
This will still matter when the site changes, since imageboards will still be the focus. The site won't change for a while anyways - the current one works and I don't want everything to break like it did before

anon 9/6/24 (Fri) 19:42:57 No.99

>>86
>Does that make scribbles on a bathroom stall lit?
There are some theorists of literature who ask that question and some say we have no right to objectively say it isn't lit. Usually, gatekeepers decide what gets counted as lit and so bathroom stall scribbles get excluded. Gatekeeping isn't inherently a bad thing, its necessary to some extent, but it would be interesting to see what would happen if you started treating bathroom stall scribbles and shitposts as literature. In Japan there was a trend where people would type out short stories and poems on flip phones or write stories modeled on 2channel threads and there are some places where you have entire archived threads that detail some weird paranormal thing that happened to OP. Can you consider that lit?

>>94
>You don't need a cultural elite to understand what literature is and what isn't.
The sociologists aren't saying you need some Leninist vanguard to decide what lit is but that the definition of literature is arbitrary. Stuff only gets labelled as lit when enough people in literary circles begin slapping that label on it. Otaku related stuff only becomes otaku associated when enough people from that culture adopt it and it becomes a staple within their in group.

>Perhaps we can restructure the boards so delineations are more clear.
I don't think that's really necessary. I guess renaming /lit/ to /book/ might be better but its not like there's a real need to do this. I don't think most people even disagree on this question. Its just interesting to ask the perennial question of "what even is lit anyway?" which nobody will be able to definitively answer. I don't think that's such a bad thing though.

Personally, when I think lit I think of books and oral stories. VNs don't fit that. The user experience is more like a game. You get the software and run it on a machine. You don't do that with a book, unless your using a digital copy I guess. Because we think of physical books when we think lit, its different enough from reading a book that it can be considered distinct. Although, you could probably apply some literary critical methods to VNs. The real Post too long. Click here to view the full text.

anon 1/12/25 (Sun) 07:25:28 No.119

>>82
Less is more
VNs are VNs, the vibe is different

anon 1/26/25 (Sun) 10:22:44 No.127

The premise of this supposed dilemma is wrong and evil. If instead of letting a label (in this case "literature") define the purpose of a board, and then let everyone fight over their personal interpretation of that label, you directly define what things are and aren't supposed to be discussed in the board to begin with, the conflict simply evaporates.
This post is literature, btw.
The sticky clearly says that
>[besides certain exceptions for NSFW] you can discuss anything you want
So I think VNs are on-topic in this board.

anon 4/16/25 (Wed) 05:54:16 No.208

some are moreso than others
you can have vns which have absolutely no reader interactability, no voicelines, just a wall of text that covers the screen with decorative borders, a background image, and some elevator music which are basically just a book with some extra bells and whistles like the original higurashi or seabed
or you have straight up point and click games that use text to drive the story and have countless routes like yu-no
they all really just fall on a spectrum and every vn does things differently

File: 1685346737906.jpg (102.78 KB, 960x1224, Gaddis2.jpg)

GADDIS APPRECIATION anon 5/29/23 (Mon) 07:52:17 No.1 [Reply]

There's this point in his novel J.R. where Bast brings J.R. to an opera and after asks J.R. what he felt, and J.R. is entirely unresponsive to the emotional impact Bast thought it was supposed to have. Bast blasts J.R. and scrutinizes him for ruining everything. "—I asked you what you heard! that's all, I …
—What like it lifted me out of mysel…
—Not what I said no you! what you heard!
—What was I suppose to hear!
—You weren't! you weren't supposed to hear anything that's what
I'm …
—Then how come you made me lis…
—To make you hear! to make you, to make you feel to try to …
—Okay okay! I mean what I heard first there's all this high music
right? So then this here lady starts singing up yours up yours so then
this man starts singing up mine, then there's some words so she starts
singing up mine up mine so he starts singing up yours so then they go
back and forth like that up mine up yours up mine up yours that's what
I heard! I mean you want me to hear it again?
—No!
—See I knew you'd…
—Never want you to hear it again I never want to hear it again
myself! you, everything you ruin everything you touch!" They go on like this for a minute until J.R. says,
"—Boy after all I did for you…
—All you did there's nothing you haven't done for me nothing
wherever I go I, that junk pocket radio there was one station with
decent music the only station left on the radio anywhere it came on
one night noises screaming pounding noise brought to you in this new
popular format by the J R Family of Companies bringing America its full
share of of holy shit!
—No but …
—No but nothing! that was you too wasn't it? even that it was your
idea wasn't it?
—Okay what's so …
—Okay nothing it's the whole thing! the whole rotten thing it's a
perfect example even you can understand it! the one station that
played music great music left in the whole loud cheap pounding
stupidity of radio you find it and make it cheap and stupid like all the
rest if you could, if there was one flower out here in this mud and
weeds and broken toilet seats you'd find it and step on it." I love how Gaddis entirely satirizes the need for corporate plasticity in art here, it's amazing and a testament to how good of a writer he is.

6 posts omitted. Click reply to view.

anon 2/14/24 (Wed) 04:35:53 No.8

unga bunga me eat rock but at least me no berry picker

anon 2/14/24 (Wed) 04:36:53 No.9

File: 1707885413183.gif (2.62 MB, 395x401, Mischevious-Jug.gif)

anon 2/14/24 (Wed) 04:42:15 No.10

File: 1707885735910.mp4 (2.14 MB, 480x852, berrieater.mp4)

>>8
>berry picker post

ooga ooga sir me eat funny polka dot flowers actually

anon 1/7/25 (Tue) 17:32:56 No.114

Just started The Recognitions.

anon 4/5/25 (Sat) 05:05:41 No.138

File: 1743829541286.jpg (2.09 MB, 4477x3114, !!shortgaddis!!.jpg)

>>114
Same, it's an amazing read.

File: 1731103163441.jpg (700.56 KB, 2048x1205, 465793217_972583768238074_….jpg)

The Mundane anon 11/8/24 (Fri) 21:59:23 No.104 [Reply]

To depict the stroad, is to give love to a street. No other man would ever give twice a look to a strip of commercial neon and plastic signage. It's a foreign concept to many. Most would rather read of other worlds made up completely of other beings unlike themselves. And yet reality, the mundane condensed into a flowery mass of prose is a lot more fun to write. It's a lot harder to depict the boring in a creative sense then to write about an alien race zapping a planet to bits or to write about elves and their extremely long pointy ears. It's just how it is. Warping the real into the unknown and foreign is a lot more fun.

At least to me.

anon 11/8/24 (Fri) 22:18:10 No.105

>>104
>just another day of living the masshole life
least i got my dunks

anon 11/28/24 (Thu) 03:00:23 No.106

File: 1732762822743.jpg (46.32 KB, 640x427, 0021.jpg)

When I was a kid, I loved the fantastical, especially science fiction. I would try to impart these stories and tropes into my own life, fictionalizing it as much as I could. As time has passed, that has quite changed: realistic fiction is my bread and butter. I do still enjoy fantasy and science fiction, but nowadays I do my best to attribute even the most abstract, futuristic, alien fantasy stories with elements from my own real life. I find that this has helped me make more sense of both fiction and my own life, though sometimes I feel guilty about the latter. With all of that said, I also find that the stories that offend me the most are stories that match my real life very closely.

Delete Post [ File] Password

Reason