badcrumble posted:
hey yall, i was just banned from wddp, i assume for having an account registered on the rhizzone that i dont make posts with or w/e

Before the law sits a gatekeeper. To this gatekeeper comes a man from the country who asks to gain entry into the law. But the gatekeeper says that he cannot grant him entry at the moment. The man thinks about it and then asks if he will be allowed to come in sometime later on. “It is possible,” says the gatekeeper, “but not now.” The gate to the law stands open, as always, and the gatekeeper walks to the side, so the man bends over in order to see through the gate into the inside. When the gatekeeper notices that, he laughs and says: “If it tempts you so much, try going inside in spite of my prohibition. But take note. I am powerful. And I am only the most lowly gatekeeper. But from room to room stand gatekeepers, each more powerful than the other. I cannot endure even one glimpse of the third.” The man from the country has not expected such difficulties: the law should always be accessible for everyone, he thinks, but as he now looks more closely at the gatekeeper in his fur coat, at his large pointed nose and his long, thin, black Tartar’s beard, he decides that it would be better to wait until he gets permission to go inside. The gatekeeper gives him a stool and allows him to sit down at the side in front of the gate. There he sits for days and years. He makes many attempts to be let in, and he wears the gatekeeper out with his requests. The gatekeeper often interrogates him briefly, questioning him about his homeland and many other things, but they are indifferent questions, the kind great men put, and at the end he always tells him once more that he cannot let him inside yet. The man, who has equipped himself with many things for his journey, spends everything, no matter how valuable, to win over the gatekeeper. The latter takes it all but, as he does so, says, “I am taking this only so that you do not think you have failed to do anything.” During the many years the man observes the gatekeeper almost continuously. He forgets the other gatekeepers, and this first one seems to him the only obstacle for entry into the law. He curses the unlucky circumstance, in the first years thoughtlessly and out loud; later, as he grows old, he only mumbles to himself. He becomes childish and, since in the long years studying the gatekeeper he has also come to know the fleas in his fur collar, he even asks the fleas to help him persuade the gatekeeper. Finally his eyesight grows weak, and he does not know whether things are really darker around him or whether his eyes are merely deceiving him. But he recognizes now in the darkness an illumination which breaks inextinguishably out of the gateway to the law. Now he no longer has much time to live. Before his death he gathers in his head all his experiences of the entire time up into one question which he has not yet put to the gatekeeper. He waves to him, since he can no longer lift up his stiffening body. The gatekeeper has to bend way down to him, for the great difference has changed things considerably to the disadvantage of the man. “What do you still want to know now?” asks the gatekeeper. “You are insatiable.” “Everyone strives after the law,” says the man, “so how is it that in these many years no one except me has requested entry?” The gatekeeper sees that the man is already dying and, in order to reach his diminishing sense of hearing, he shouts at him, “Here no one else can gain entry, since this entrance was assigned only to you. I’m going now to close it.”

badcrumble posted:
i should definitely have a lot of forum power imo

THE EMPEROR, so a parable runs, has sent a message to you , the humble subject, the insignificant shadow cowering in the remotest distance before the imperial sun; the Emperor from his deathbed has sent a message to you alone.
He has commanded the messenger to kneel down by the bed, and has whispered the message to him; so much store did he lay on it that he ordered the messenger to whisper it back into his ear again.
Then by a nod of the head he has confirmed that it is right. Yes, before the assembled spectators of his death-- all the obstructing walls have been broken down, and on the spacious and loftily mounting open staircases stand in a ring the great princes of the Empire-- before all these he has delivered his message.
The messenger immediately sets out on his journey; a powerful, an indefatigable man; now pushing with his right arm, now with his left, he cleaves a way for himself through the throng; if he encounters resistance he points to his breast, where the symbol of the sun glitters; the way is made easier for him than it would be for any other man.
But the multitudes are so vast; their numbers have no end. If he could reach the open fields how fast he would fly, and soon doubtless you would hear the welcome hammering of his fists on your door.
But instead how vainly does he wear out his strength; still he is only making his way through the chambers of the innermost palace; never will he get to the end of them; and if he succeeded in that, nothing would be gained; he must next fight his way down the stair; and if he succeeded in that, nothing would he gained; the courts would still have to be crossed; and after the courts the second outer palace; and once more stairs and courts; and once more another palace; and so on for thousands of years; and if at last he should burst through the outermost gate -- but never, never can that happen -- the imperial capital would lie before him, the center of the world, crammed to bursting with its own sediment.
Nobody could fight his way through here even with a message from the Emperor. But you sit at your window when evening falls and dream it to yourself.

mistersix posted:
hi bookthread. just picked up the complete stories ("stories" ie not including novels) of kafka at half price books. i quite like that place, they usually got some good stuff in addition to the fifty million copies of dan brown novels

thats cool, the trial in particular is really great i remember.

also hello book thread, how are you. in the past few weeks ive finished the snopes trilogy and hero of our time and man alive but faulkner was out of place after ww2 and hero of our time really ruled

deadken posted:
quentins chapter really owned.... im a sucka for the stylistic tropes of high modernism

do i have some good news for you about absalom absalom then lmao

tpaine posted:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHDOALyDOO8

do u listen to Magma tpaine?

deadken posted:

Tsargon posted:

deadken posted:
quentins chapter really owned.... im a sucka for the stylistic tropes of high modernism

do i have some good news for you about absalom absalom then lmao

lol. have u read the death of virgil. i think impper recc'd it to me but im not sure

tpaine posted:

Tsargon posted:
ive started in on the idiot but lyle made a real compelling case for reading oblamov instead so i think im gonna try and gin up a copy of either that or the man without qualities

you should read flavin instead

idk what either of these things are :^

tpaine posted:
cheggit moresalt
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjFn3G_uSko

this song is hilarious

deadken posted:
wanted to quote this b/c the first time I got pulled up hard on my male privilege around here it was done so aggressively i spent the next 4-5 hours in a shellshocked suicidal loop. so fair enough it needed doing but it's kind of hellacious reading some of yall acting like words cannot actually be violence unless they are about specific things.


e: should qualify that by stating that i am totally aware that the oppression of women is a vastly more serious issue but i want to post here too and its unrealistic to expect anybody to never make mistakes. i don't know if that last is a remotely fair way to put it, though. argh. this is so hard ._.