I'm using the DE skill sheet as a template to compile a list of books that best characterize each skill, be it by theme, plot, prose or whatever other element. If any of you classy fellas of this board think you can help me complete it, I'm looking for suggestions.
Short stories are welcome, but whole books are even better.
Non-fiction is welcome, but the prose has to be solid.
Ideally, no author would appear twice.
If a skill has a book already but you think you have a good fit for it anyway, let me know as well.
Here's a list for reference on what the skills determine:
> https://discoelysium.fandom.com/wiki/Skills#List_of_skills
And here's what I have so far:
- INTELLECT -
Logic -
Encyclopedia - "Fictions" by Jorge Luis Borges
Rhetoric -
Drama - "I, Claudius" by Robert Graves (I was also thinking of "Hard To Be A God" by the Strugatskys, but I'm not too far into it to be sure.)
Conceptualization - "Vermilion Sands" by J. G. Ballard
Visual Calculus - "The Murders In The Rue Morgue" by Edgar Allan Poe
- PSYCHE -
Volition - "Perelandra" by C. S. Lewis
Inland Empire - "The Skin" by Curzio Malaparte
Empathy - "The Left Hand Of Darkness" by Ursula K. LeGuin
Authority -
Esprit de Corps - "Homicide" by David Simon
Suggestion - "Paradise Lost" by John Milton
- PHYSIQUE -
Endurance -
Pain Threshold - "The Orphan Master’s Son" by Adam Johnson
Physical Instrument -
Electrochemsitry - "Naked Lunch" by William Burroughs (Perhaps too obvious?)
Shivers -
Half Light - "Dispatches" by Michael Herr
- MOTORICS -
Hand/Eye Coordination - (I've never read a Western genre book, but would guess a story about gunslingers would fit in here)
Perception - "Gravity's Rainbow" by Thomas Pynchon (Of course, it could fit many other skills. The creators of DE are clearly Pynchon fans.)
Reaction Speed -
Savoir Faire - "The Charterhouse Of Parma" by Stendhal
Interfacing - "A Canticle For Leibowitz" by Walter M. Miller Jr.
Composure - "Bartleby, The Scrivener" by Herman Melville
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What an odd little project. I wish you well
Likewise.
I'll make a nice chart and upload it when the list is complete.
Now that you mention it, I think they said something about Geminal. I watched the movie in highschool but haven't read the book yet. By what I remember of it, maybe it could go to Rhetoric.
Of course, how could I forget Mishima? Makes perfect sense. Added to the list.
Will also check Kazantzakis out, never heard of him before.
Thanks anon.
Based anon
Please post more once you get the chance
didn't zola's germinal influence disco elysium
Physical Instrument - Sun & Steel
I'd replace the Volition book with something like Kazantzakis' Saviors of God. You want a story about struggling against demons, inner and outer, which is what Volition is. Up to you.
>Kazantzakis
Roast Beef?
Endurance could be Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle". The whole book is a study in how much physical and emotional damage people can take before they keel over
Do I need to read Pynchon (any or specifics) before playing DE? I'd like to play it soon, after I finish Persona 4.
In my case, I played it before reading anything by Pynchon. I've only read GR and it struck me in retrospect how similar in style and tone the writing in the game is. I've also heard the player character is modelled after the protagonist of Inherent Vice, but cannot say for sure. Are you specifically worried about spoilers?
I'd like to go in to it blind as it sounds very unique. I'll probably save some books from this thread but not read much about the game if it comes up.
Thoroughly recommended. If you played (and liked) Planescape Torment, you'll have an absolute ball with DE.
>Logic
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
>Rhetoric
Rhetoric (By Aristotle, too obvious?)
The Great Gatsby
Dangerous Liaisons
>Authority
Obedience to Authority (An Experimental View)
Book of Documents (Shūjīng)
>Endurance
The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit
The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition
>Physical Instrument
Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder
Sun and Steel
>Electrochemistry
A Scanner Darkly
>Shivers
Tao Te Ching
Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious
>Half Light
The 48 Laws of Power
>Reaction Speed
FMFRP 12-80 Kill or Get Killed, U.S Marine Corps
>Tao Te Ching
Kekked, it's less urban but checks out.
You are either autistic or a troony. In any case, you deserve a beating for liking commie games.
I deserved a beating well before liking commie games, brother.
> The Great Gatsby
Could fall comfortably under Drama.
> The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit
> The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition
> FMFRP 12-80 Kill or Get Killed, U.S Marine Corps
These could be interesting.
Thanks anon.
Thanks anon.
Authority: "Once An Eagle", about being a good military leader. It's on the US Marines suggested reading list (yes they have one)
Drama:
>King Con: The Bizarre Adventures of the Jazz Age’s Greatest Impostor
>The Great Gatsby
Electrochemistry - Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, obviously
Pain Threshold - Fight Club ?
>Shivers
The Zinester’s Guide to NYC
Or
After Dark by Haruki Murakami (probably the more IQfy option)
No. I happen to like interracial porn a lot as well.
>Encyclopedia
Alan Moore's From Hell, Voice of the Fire and Jerusalem
Ian Sinclair's The Last London: True Fictions from an Unreal City, London Orbital, Lights out for the territory,
James Joyce's Dubliners and The Dead