I don't care if I got this from Reddit, I think it's badass.
It's a short story, I don't see what's so badass about it.
It's not the best I've read, but hey, the brush and color style is nice, no ?
The only thing good about that story was the art, which was awesome.
Check out some of the Reddit comments for a detailed analysis. When I first read the comic, I was like "What? This is dumb."
But the more and more I read of people nitpicking it the more I think about it. It's actually pretty neat how it's ambiguous.
I'm not saying it's the greatest fiction ever, but I did enjoy it in retrospect.
It's cool. I enjoyed it.
A website the way it should be. In think in today's internet we're all too link happy. Those pages play out more like a book.
In think in today's internet we're all too link happy
Repeat after me: "Pay per view ads... Pay per view ads... Pay per view ads..."
And page rank.
It reminds me of the classic drivel we had to discuss in literature classes. At least here I don't have to pretend to like it. 
The Russian sleep experiment is the best short story I've ever read.
Meh. Prolix, unconvincing creepypasta.
The Russian sleep experiment is the best short story I've ever read [rip747.wordpress.com].
Interesting, but I thought the ending was stupid. Got any more stories like this?
The ending reminded me one short story by Edgar Alan Poe. Anyway it was quite good. I really like the art style.
It had no twist, no real story. Nothing apart from okay art.
If you want to see something truly awesome, watch this (ideally in HD + fullscreen): http://www.gobelins.fr/galerie/animation/film2010-royaume.htm
Though I guess it's already been linked here.
It had no twist
Yeah it did.
First reading was "huh? Ok."
Re-reading it a couple of times afterwards and thinking about it made it far more interesting. There's a lot of symbolism and fairy-tale motives in there.
How much of that is deliberate on the author's part is always a question, since people tend to read more into these things than the author put in. But it is very, very interesting.
Not for people who like everything explained and tied up though.
It is more interesting if the author actually is trying to prove something other than that people will read anything they want into a story that is nonsensical.
While the basic story poses an interesting dilemma, it does nothing with it. There's no closure or solid clues to what actually occurred. One might as well assume that a missing final page says, "And he woke up from his dream and went pee."
If an abrupt non-ending to a story is a good thing, then we should do everybody a favor by going to the library and tearing out the last 50 pages of every novel. And why bother watching the end of a movie? It's obviously more interesting if you have to come up with the ending and purpose yourself.
ML: you really hate interpreting the endings yourself, do you?
There's a difference between an ending that is left open for interpretation and a story that makes absolutely no sense.
Considering that this is a horror story, you are to interpret where the impostor came from. The horror comes from this fact.
There's so much left to think about when you really analyse it. I love that it basically gives you what you're willing to put in (if you skim, you get nothing).
Here's some thoughts:
His brother was still in the grave. Does this mean that when his brother came back he merely imagined his brother coming back? And the grave digging was merely his guilty conscious tricking him?
However!
My favorite is that he didn't kill his brother. His brother was still alive at the bottom of the cave after being shot/hit and over three days passing! That's unlikely... for a human.
He meant to kill his brother but he actually killed the doppleganger whereas his real brother ran off into the forest (like he did). But his brother saw him kill the doppleganger in cold blood (thinking it was his brother) and realized the protagonist actually meant to kill him, so it filled him with rage and he came back after plotting his revenge for three days. When he comes back, he never makes eye contact with the protagonist. He's also seen digging a grave (likely to kill the protagonist to get him back.)
There's other ideas where the killing represents something crazy like the US economy or an emotion like humility. I think that much reading in is complete rubbish, but to each his liberal art degree.
The horror comes from the realization that you just wasted time reading the thing.
I imagined that a large part of the story happened in his mind, like in the story An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. In other words, he only fantasized about killing his brother, so strongly that he actually thought it happened. Maybe after getting laughed at.
Dunno, the resulting pseudo-intellectualism is pretty horrifying too.
There's so much left to think about when you really analyse it
No there really isn't. Sorry, but your theories are exactly the type of crap I would except to come out of analysing such feeble and nonsensical story. Go read some real literature, and then come back and tell me there is any sort of story or meaning here.
I bet you my soul that the author was high on piccolo weed when he drew that comic.
Yeah it did.
First reading was "huh? Ok."
Re-reading it a couple of times afterwards and thinking about it made it far more interesting. There's a lot of symbolism and fairy-tale motives in there.
How much of that is deliberate on the author's part is always a question, since people tend to read more into these things than the author put in. But it is very, very interesting.
Not for people who like everything explained and tied up though.
I think that's one of the key features that makes the difference between art and craftsmanship. As an artist, you try to create a tight web of associations and symbolism, mostly based on intuition. Often, the associations all run into dead ends quickly, and the resulting work is rather shallow; after a while, you've had enough of it and starting to notice the faults and errors more than its artistic content. However, sometimes a magical thing happens: the associations and symbols and cross-links and connections you've made reach "critical mass", and open up a self-fuelled cascade of perspectives and thoughts; they start leading their own life, and even the artist stands amazed at the ideas it provokes. The artist (not even Picasso himself) doesn't control this process, and doesn't plan everything you see in a work; what makes a good artist is not excellent craftsmanship (although that is pretty much a requirement), it's not being able to plan a work in great detail and execute that plan meticulously: it's being able to lay down the groundwork on which a fascinating, magical thing can unravel.
But then, "writing about music is like dancing about architecture", so writing about this is time wasted (guilty as charged). Some people have that sense that is tickled by good art, others don't. Neither is better, although there are idiot who pretend to have it while they don't, forcing themselves to "enjoy" lengthy plays without any artistic value, or listen to "modern" music (the kind that used to be avant-garde 50 years ago) and pretend to like it, then go on writing long essays about how the particular work is about The Economy, The Universe, Quantum Mechanics, Religion, Mankind As A Whole, or whatever they think art should be about, or worse, they fill column after column with meaningless babbling about the technical skills involved, mainly focusing on the things that go wrong.
The Russian sleep experiment is the best short story I've ever read
I did not enjoy it. It read too much like a low budget horror film; A lot of pointless gore and suspension without much point.
"We gave test subject strange gas and something strange happened" about sums it up.
My favorite short story (and I'm not well-read in the short story department) is The Last Question (by Issac Asimov), it does not fit with the theme of this thread at all, but I like it anyway
As an artist, you try to create a tight web of associations and symbolism, mostly based on intuition. Often, the associations all run into dead ends quickly, and the resulting work is rather shallow; after a while, you've had enough of it and starting to notice the faults and errors more than its artistic content. However, sometimes a magical thing happens: the associations and symbols and cross-links and connections you've made reach "critical mass", and open up a self-fuelled cascade of perspectives and thoughts; they start leading their own life, and even the artist stands amazed at the ideas it provokes. The artist (not even Picasso himself) doesn't control this process, and doesn't plan everything you see in a work; what makes a good artist is not excellent craftsmanship (although that is pretty much a requirement), it's not being able to plan a work in great detail and execute that plan meticulously: it's being able to lay down the groundwork on which a fascinating, magical thing can unravel.
Nicely put.
It reminds me that at one point I got really annoyed with Harry Mulisch because for at least some of his work, it seemed obvious that he was stuffing in as much symbolism as possible without any real plan behind it. Just symbolism for the sake of letting people look for meaning in it.
The horror comes from the realization that you just wasted time reading the thing.
I concur.
Nicely put.
It reminds me that at one point I got really annoyed with Harry Mulisch because for at least some of his work, it seemed obvious that he was stuffing in as much symbolism as possible without any real plan behind it. Just symbolism for the sake of letting people look for meaning in it.
After reading "The Discovery Of Heaven" (or rather, the original "De ontdekking van de hemel"), and not knowing anything about Mulisch except that he was supposed to be an important writer, I spent quite some time wondering whether he was being sarcastic, and mocking the whole Christianity thing, or whether he was actually being serious. The I figured, if a lover of good black sarcasm like me can't figure it out, then it's either a failed attempt at sarcasm, or a failed attempt at a cohesive world view. I then decided I didn't like the book much.
After reading "The Discovery Of Heaven" (or rather, the original "De ontdekking van de hemel")
Funny. That's the book I was thinking of when I said that.
Well, I think given someone has read exactly one book by Mulisch in the past few years, the chances of that book being "The Discovery..." are rather high I'd say - after all, among his books, this is probably the one that got the most international attention.
I don't know, maybe it's a Dutch thing, but I just didn't "get" it. Maybe the Dutch literature still has to recover from those centuries of deep and thorough Calvinism, which for some reason held the country back until long after WWII (and to a certain extent continues to do so). Maybe I just never experienced in person the thing he's mocking in that book.
among his books, this is probably the one that got the most international attention.
Probably. De Aanslag is probably a close second (and very different, dealing directly with WWII).
Maybe the Dutch literature still has to recover from those centuries of deep and thorough Calvinism, which for some reason held the country back until long after WWII (and to a certain extent continues to do so).
I don't think it's just Dutch literature that suffers under centuries of Calvinism. 
Maybe I just never experienced in person the thing he's mocking in that book.
I don't think he's mocking anything. I think he's dead serious.
What Mulisch likes to do (in works like De Ontdekking van de Hemel but also De Procedure) is to juxtapose science and religion and, through layers of symbolism and metafore, show that they're looking at the same thing in the end (in De Procedure by drawing a parallel between the creation of a Golem and making synthetic life).
I don't think he's mocking anything. I think he's dead serious.
You think he's dead serious about angels referring to God as "the boss", and meticulously monitoring and manipulating peoples' lives to execute the will of an otherwise omnipotent God? I find that hard to believe.
What Mulisch likes to do (in works like De Ontdekking van de Hemel but also De Procedure) is to juxtapose science and religion and, through layers of symbolism and metafore, show that they're looking at the same thing in the end (in De Procedure by drawing a parallel between the creation of a Golem and making synthetic life).
...all of which is of course ultimate and utter bullshit, excusez le mot, because science and religion are not opposites. There are things we can observe, there is basic logic, and there's Ockham's Razor; these three are enough to bootstrap Science as a whole. Refusing to accept Science and scientific methodology means you don't accept one of:
a) that there is a reality which we can observe, at least partially
b) that the basic rules of logic are valid
c) that given two explanations to a phenomenon, the simpler one is more likely to be correct, all else being equal
Not accepting a) is a valid, yet useless, philosophical point of view - if we cannot observe a reality in any way, then what ground do we have to reason from?
Not accepting b) is theoretically valid too, but it leaves you without any instruments for arguing your point, rendering every conversation pointless by definition.
Not accepting c), probably the most popular one, means you choose your explanation based on what you wish for, rather than what is objectively the best explanation, and again, you have no ground to argue from against someone who picks a different explanation.
Aaaanyway... long story short, I don't like Mulisch, FSM bless his soul.
You think he's dead serious about angels referring to God as "the boss", and meticulously monitoring and manipulating peoples' lives to execute the will of an otherwise omnipotent God? I find that hard to believe.
No, I meant I don't think what he writes is satire. I don't think he's mocking anything.
Obviously he's not serious when he pictures God as the arch-manipulator with an extended network of angels to do his divine will.
because science and religion are not opposites
I think that's his point. Or was.
I don't actually know whether he was in any way religious or not, or what his views on that were.
My favorite short story (and I'm not well-read in the short story department) is The Last Question [www.multivax.com] (by Issac Asimov), it does not fit with the theme of this thread at all, but I like it anyway
Aww, I love the author and the story too 
I've read it half a decade ago, now happily read it again
By the way I think it's some not-full version:
I'm either confusing something or there was some person in the fat future that was so sad the stars are dying, that he just made a "new star now".
Append:
Cool thing.
