Hacker News with Generative AI: Literature

Siddhartha (wikipedia.org)
Siddhartha: An Indian novel (German: Siddhartha: Eine Indische Dichtung; German: [ziˈdaʁta] ⓘ) is a 1922 novel by Hermann Hesse that deals with the spiritual journey of self-discovery of a man named Siddhartha during the time of the Gautama Buddha.
Novels, Literature, Spirituality, India, Buddhism
50 points by simonebrunozzi 1 day ago | 39 comments
George Eliot's reflections on AGI from 1879 (learningfromexamples.com)
George Eliot, or Mary Ann Evans as she was known to her friends, was one of the most influential writers of Victorian England. Amongst her greatest hits were The Mill on the Floss, a novel about two siblings grappling with family life, and Middlemarch, a meditation on marriage, idealism, and self-interest.
Artificial Intelligence, Literature, History
145 points by benbreen 7 days ago | 56 comments
The Human Alphabet (publicdomainreview.org)
In Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women (1868–69), we are told how “Demi learned his letters with his grandfather, who invented a new mode of teaching the alphabet by forming letters with his arms and legs, thus uniting gymnastics for head and heels.” Composed across more than half a millennium, the images gathered below also unite contortion and composition, and seem to celebrate the innate humanness of writing, which tops the list of qualities that distinguish our dear species most distinctly
History, Literature, Art, Human Body
31 points by crescit_eundo 9 days ago | 12 comments
The Timeless Lessons of "The Lord of the Rings" (historica.world)
Literature, Fantasy, Philosophy
6 points by BerislavLopac 16 days ago | 0 comments
25 Years Ago, Joan Didion Kept a Diary. It's About to Become Public (nytimes.com)
In December 1999, around her 65th birthday, Joan Didion started writing a journal after sessions with her psychiatrist. Over the next year or so, she kept notes about their conversations, which covered her struggles with anxiety, guilt and depression, her sometimes fraught relationship with her daughter, and her thoughts about her work and legacy.
Journalism, Personal Diaries, Mental Health, Celebrities, Literature
7 points by Caiero 16 days ago | 1 comments
The King in Yellow (wikipedia.org)
The King in Yellow is a book of short stories by American writer Robert W. Chambers, first published by F. Tennyson Neely in 1895.
Horror, Literature, Fiction, Short Stories
79 points by keiferski 16 days ago | 62 comments
Franz Kafka – the workers' friend (2018) (marywcraig.com)
Everyone has heard of Franz Kafka, the writer of such masterpieces such as Metamorphosis and The Trial. His troubled relationship with his father, his love life and his eventual early death from tuberculosis are all well documented. What is less well known is his work for Die Arbeiter-Unfall-Versicherungs-Anhalt für das Königreich Böhmen in Prag (the Workers Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia in Prague).
Franz Kafka, Literature, Biography, History
53 points by robtherobber 16 days ago | 4 comments
How Translation Works, Book Title Edition (scalzi.com)
As any translator will tell you, translating a piece of fiction isn’t about simply transcribing words one-to-one from one language to another. It’s about capturing a vibe — making sure the tone and intent of the piece come through in words when a mere transliteration would fail.
Translation, Fiction, Language, Writing, Literature
61 points by janpio 18 days ago | 21 comments
Anything threatening to be a subculture is commodified before it can walk (2014) (dezeen.com)
Inevitably, in the latest book, The Peripheral, our unbridled materialism yields what we fear – climate-driven apocalypse.
Culture, Technology, Consumerism, Dystopia, Literature
252 points by delaugust 18 days ago | 265 comments
I'm Ready for You: On Balzac (lrb.co.uk)
Literature, Essays, Authors
36 points by lermontov 20 days ago | 5 comments
A lesson from a sci-fi writer Stanisław Lem about fascism [video] (youtube.com)
Fascism, Science Fiction, Literature, Video
10 points by ajuc 21 days ago | 1 comments
Why Children's Books? (lrb.co.uk)
In​ 1803, Samuel Taylor Coleridge sat in his astronomer’s study in Keswick, and wrote in his notebook his central Principle of Criticism:
Literature, Criticism, Children's Literature
92 points by ferman 22 days ago | 70 comments
The Modern Novel: The world-wide literary novel from early 20th Century onwards (themodernnovel.org)
This website celebrates the world-wide literary novel since approximately the beginning of the twentieth century, arranged by nationality.  It is a personal but extensive survey of literary fiction since around 1900, which will continue to grow.
Literature, Novels, 20th Century, History, Literary Criticism
8 points by Caiero 25 days ago | 1 comments
Goethe's "Sorcerer's Apprentice" – power over wisdom (wilderutopia.com)
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, an ages-old fairy tale interpreted as a poem by Goethe, made famous today by Disney’s Fantasia, illustrated the dangers of power over wisdom, and the risk of human creations getting out of control.
Poetry, Literature, Fairy Tales, Mythology
99 points by andsoitis 26 days ago | 36 comments
George R.R. Martin has co-authored a physics paper (arstechnica.com)
Although fans of A Song of Ice and Fire might still be hankering for the long-delayed next book in the series, bestselling sci-fi/fantasy author George R.R. Martin has instead added a different item to his long list of publications: a peer-reviewed physics paper just published in the American Journal of Physics that he co-authored.
Science, Physics, Literature, Authors
64 points by rntn 29 days ago | 91 comments
Sci-fi author Alan Dean Foster moves into gaming with Pomme studio deal Midworld (venturebeat.com)
Best-selling science fiction and fantasy author Alan Dean Foster is moving into gaming in a multi-license deal with studio Pomme, starting with a game based on his classic Midworld novel.
Science Fiction, Gaming, Literature, Licensing, Games
4 points by doctaj 32 days ago | 1 comments
But let us cultivate our garden (2018) (themillions.com)
“But let us cultivate our garden.” —Candide by Voltaire (1759), translated by Theo Cuffe (2009)
Literature, Philosophy, History
26 points by gone35 32 days ago | 3 comments
Masters of Allusion: The Art of Poetic Reference (nytimes.com)
Poetry, Literature, Art
36 points by tintinnabula 33 days ago | 28 comments
Frankenstein inspired by suicide of Mary Shelley's half-sister, book reveals (theguardian.com)
Frankenstein’s monster, as horror fans know, did not really spark into life with a bolt of lightning, but was born inside the mind of Mary Shelley during a dreary holiday on a ­mountainside above Geneva.
Literature, Biography, History
11 points by mellosouls 33 days ago | 2 comments
Is Atlas Shrugged the New Vibe? (commonreader.co.uk)
It's time to take Ayn Rand seriously.
Philosophy, Literature, Ayn Rand
36 points by HR01 34 days ago | 65 comments
Characters in Moby Dick according to Google ... I don't remember Yosemite Sam (solipsys.co.uk)
Prompted by a post I saw elsewhere, I had to confirm this.
Literature, Artificial Intelligence, Humor
5 points by ColinWright 34 days ago | 3 comments
What the Most Famous Book About Trauma Gets Wrong (motherjones.com)
Trauma, Psychology, Books, Literature
9 points by ingve 35 days ago | 3 comments
Book and Dagger: How scholars and librarians became spies during World War II (newrepublic.com)
About a year after I completed my Ph.D. in modern literature, during which time I’d had no luck landing employment, I approached a well-known literary scholar for his counsel. “Greg,” he said conspiratorially, “have you ever thought about working for the company?” “Dr. ___, I don’t really want to go into private industry.” “No, Greg; I mean the company. I can get you in.” Gobsmacked, I thought to myself, This guy doesn’t know his audience. Neither our politics nor my skills.
History, Academia, Espionage, Literature
61 points by samclemens 35 days ago | 50 comments
Selling the Collective: On Kevin Killian's "Selected Amazon Reviews" (clereviewofbooks.com)
I texted a friend about an upcoming collection of Amazon reviews by the writer Kevin Killian. He texted back that he thinks a lot about all the great writing that has disappeared over the years—from early Usenet, billboards, MySpace, and weblogs—into the ether.
Literature, Book Reviews, Online Culture
18 points by pseudolus 35 days ago | 3 comments
Literate programming: Knuth is doing it wrong (2014) (akkartik.name)
Literate programming advocates this: Order your code for others to read, not for the compiler. Beautifully typeset your code so one can curl up in bed to read it like a novel. Keep documentation in sync with code. What's not to like about this vision? I have two beefs with it: the ends are insufficiently ambitious by focusing on a passive representation; and the means were insufficiently polished, by over-emphasizing typesetting at the cost of prose quality.
Programming, Software Development, Criticism, Literature
132 points by surprisetalk 39 days ago | 134 comments
The Chaos (1922) (idallen.com)
A number of readers have been urging republication of The Chaos, the well-known versified catalogue of English spelling irregularities.
Poetry, Language, Literature, History
79 points by devvvvvvv 41 days ago | 31 comments
Visualizing Joyce's Ulysses: "Sirens" as a Graphic Score (emilyfuhrman.co)
In reference to schemas for Ulysses, Joyce describes the compositional technique behind the “Sirens” episode as a “fugue with all musical notations,”[1] and as including the “eight regular parts of a fuga per canonem.”[2] While the structure of the episode remains unresolved, this project is an attempt to track and classify all of the sounds that comprise it, and depict them as a graphic score.
Literature, Music, Visualizations
9 points by thcipriani 43 days ago | 0 comments
The Complete Text of "All Watched over by Machines of Loving Grace" (jgc.org)
Richard Brautigan's poem "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace" is somewhat well known in tech. circles but I couldn't find a complete PDF of the original 1967 publication of it (and other poems) online.
Poetry, Literature, Richard Brautigan, Technology, Online Resources
64 points by MilnerRoute 43 days ago | 30 comments
A Supermarket in California (1955) (poetryfoundation.org)
What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.
Poetry, California, Literature, Culture, 1950s
50 points by squircle 44 days ago | 22 comments
The Heroic Industry of the Brothers Grimm (hudsonreview.com)
In an 1846 letter to the Athenaeum, English writer William Thoms coined a term, “folklore.”
Folklore, Literature, Brothers Grimm, History
48 points by prismatic 44 days ago | 9 comments