Literary confession thread

i hate pynchon

i'm 35 and still don't understand Ulysses

>>7611799

Tommy here. The fuck, man.

>>7611815
sorry man i think even dfw is better, and i think he's pretty shit

File: photo.jpg (120KB, 1024x1026px) Image search: [Google]

120KB, 1024x1026px

>>7611796

I wish I could have been DFW's best friend.

>>7611799
I don't hate him. It just becomes tedious looking up words every other sentence.
Mason and Dixon still ends up being in my top twenty favorite books though.

>>7611796
I masturbated numerous times while reading the works of Marquis de Sade.

>>7611796
I'm still reading a book I started last year. I had high hopes for this year.

I honestly still think I have the potential to become a novelist.

>>7611826
You and me both. Probably simultaneously. My stroke was your stroke. I tasted your seed, and it sprouted in me a love of Philosophy.

>>7611834

I do too. cheers faggot!

>>7611796
I wrote my little pony fanfiction.

>>7611826
Who hasn't?

>>7611846

I wrote fan faction once to illustrate a song by a singer that I had a crush on. I don't know if that is more or less pathetic than mlp fan fiction.

>>7611826
>you will never have your sister read you de Sade in bed while she prescribes you hippocratic medicinal treatments

I'm not even living the literary lifestyle.

Not even close.

I wrote plenty of fanf-

Well it looks like every fucking one here did that.

Stevie King's best novels are his longest.

>>7611796

I write a lot. I sometimes write 30 pages or more in one sitting. Always pen on paper. And then I burn it. It can be fiction, but usually non fiction. Usually it's myself reflecting on politics, economics, social issues, and the absolute disgust I have for this world. I wish to find peace, and I hope I do in death.

File: 2015-12-29_02.53.50.jpg (96KB, 639x545px) Image search: [Google]

96KB, 639x545px

>>7611890

File: 102948395729.jpg (82KB, 620x388px) Image search: [Google]

82KB, 620x388px

>>7611901

Should've said >inb4 edgy

But I mean those words. I loathe life, I am miserable. Getting up in the morning is a chore. And ultimately our species will die out. There is no saving us. We are too blinded by our own greed which slows the progress of technological advancement. We will never conquer the stars. We will perish. Every man, woman and child will turn to ash. Our Sun will die, as will we.

File: bible_rp.jpg (421KB, 900x1098px) Image search: [Google]

421KB, 900x1098px

>>7611909
Babbys first existential crisis.

If you really write that much quit burning your shit. Eventually you'll be able to stitch those gems together and write something decent

>>7611912

I'm a 20 year old baby almost in my third year of college and this is my first serious existential crisis which as been going on for a few months. Thanks for the advice though. Maybe I'll try to piece something together someday.

File: image.jpg (52KB, 1008x720px) Image search: [Google]

52KB, 1008x720px

I am writing an autobiography (changing the names of all of the people and my own) of my sad, lonely, and filled with domestic abuse childhood up until I'm 17, instead of me going on my life and becoming a NEET and then homeless I become a serial killer instead. I'll pass the book off as fiction

>>7611950

It was going good until that last part. You have potential you just need to stop being a total faggot. Seriously.

>>7611955
I don't want anyone thinking I had that childhood so they give me pity

>>7611950

It was going good until that last part. You have potential you just need to stop being a total faggot. Seriously.

>>7611959

God damn I am so drunk I posted twice.

Alright man, good luck to you.

File: 167.gif (2MB, 405x265px) Image search: [Google]

2MB, 405x265px

I read pop history sometimes. I like Stacey Schiff and Simon Sebag Montefiore. And I enjoyed Richard Dawkins' Ancestor's Tale...

I got super ambitious about reading at the end of last year and got like 20 books for Christmas because that's all I asked for. I haven't finished one.

I'm working on getting back into reading because I used to love it, but by god most of the /lit/-core I've read is dry and draining.

I'm halfway through Steppenwolf and I'm finding it really hard to like Harry. The whole Treatise on the Steppenwolf was fantastic, but I really want Harry to stop being a whiney edgelord and realize his situation is only as grave as he's allowing it to be. I loved Hesse's Siddhartha though

>>7611890
Recycle it instead, save the planet in case you hate yourself less in future

>>7611967
>And I enjoyed Richard Dawkins' Ancestor's Tale...

Nothing bad about that, most of Dawkins' pop-evo-biology books are really good

Then he discovered neo-atheism and Twitter and it all went to shit.

>>7611980
>One autist burning a total of maybe 30 pages is equivalent to massive worldwide deforestation.

>>7611912
I got that existencial crisis 2 years ago and now im better(although not the same as before). So tell me sempai,what kind of knowledge leads you to level 2 ,3,4 of existencial crisis?

>>7611959
That's the writer's objective. Write something typically reacted to in a certain way, then surprise the reader by eliciting from them a different reaction.

File: 1324341667552.png (16KB, 614x620px) Image search: [Google]

16KB, 614x620px

I wrote incest erotica to strengthen my sexual writing for my novel.

I ended up posting it on Reddit and it was very well received.

Now I like incest porn.

>>7611950
Good luck anon. I hope you're life is better now. How did you cope when you were homeless?

>>7612000
Post it

File: 1436413563893.gif (2MB, 403x554px) Image search: [Google]

2MB, 403x554px

>>7611909
>We are too blinded by our own desire to get things which prevents us from getting more things.

>>7611970
try and find books you'll actually like, rather than forcing yourself to read /lit/ approved shit

>>7612000
>i swear i don't like incest
Yeah buddy

>>7611909

That's not even coherent.

If you hate life, rejoice! Everyone's going to die.

>>7611970

You can't read if you don't like the main character?

File: 1445558124202.jpg (227KB, 1173x392px) Image search: [Google]

227KB, 1173x392px

>>7611993
Well first one is about life having no meaning. I'd say after that you can simply lose passion and you'll be back to square one. Now it's about having a rock and at least being certain of something. It's about having something to count on. I then realised arguments against there being any kind of truth are logically pretty strong. Now I'm trying to reconcile this emptiness in a Sisyphean way but I never really found it wholly satisfying. Not that anon btw I was lurking. Anyone care to call me pretentious or add their own personal experiences?

>>7611950
The real ending sounds better though

>>7612032

Too many people care only about money. The entire economic system is a joke and is a detriment to humanity. Hardly anyone cares about funding scientific research. That's why NASA get's a minuscule amount of the funding the military gets. We're too concerned with building weapons to protect us from and destroy our enemies even though it's mostly propaganda.

>>7611829

Same boat. I have a couple that've been hanging on for months. And I have another I started on New Year's Day, of which I've read exactly 50 pages so far.

I loved 'slice of life' Young Adult fiction when I was 18-20 years old.
Read the perks of being a wallflower on my computer screen because I didn't have an e-reader, thought it was amazing. Also read and loved 'Looking for Alaska'. Other favourites include 'Catcher' and S E Hinton's 'The Outsiders.' I think I was at a reasonable age when I read them though.

>>7612189
>I loved young adult fiction when I was a young adult
I-It's almost like they're catering.

>>7612192
Nah, young adult fiction is a term used to pacify the 'think of the children censorship committee,' the term panders to teenagers who feel they gain a sense of maturity by reading these books. Once you finish school you definitely leave the target audience of young adult fiction. Not to say you are no longer a young adult.

>>7611970
An unlikeable character isn't a bad character, anon. Once you come to understand and appreciate that, many things will become more accessible and fulfilling.

>>7611909
You're right to burn your writing if it's anything like that post - it reads like 2004 high-school emo poetry. Absolutely haram.

>>7611813
Along with everybody else.

>>7612537

>if i don't get it no one else gets it!!!
>projecting your own stupidity this hard

>>7611909
Kill yourself, stemedgelord man.

>>7611796
I browse here to talk about books more than I actually read them

>>7612564
That isn't really a confession, everybody does that with any hobby.

I've read Discourse on the Method everyday for the last 3 years
I don't even know why, its just what I do when I wake up

The only books I've read in the past 3 years are The Myth of Sisyphus and Notes From the Underground.
I have lost the motivation to read.

>>7612179
Well m8, let's get on it

>>7612585
>The Myth of Sisyphus and Notes From the Underground
You're alright anon. If I forced myself to finish reading those, I would have quit reading altogether also.

>>7612690
Notes was alright, but towards the end, the whole thing with Liza was just painful to read.

I think White Teeth Sucked.
I think Cormac McCarthy is a Pleb.
I love Pynchon, but it's hard to describe why.
I read books based off of recommendations by certified tools (e.g. Harold Bloom, James Wood).
I identify with Murakami protagonists on a profoundly depressing level.
I couldn't get through The Sound and the Fury.

I respect and appreciate Pynchon, Hemingway, Woolf, and Joyce but I think I'm not yet ready for them. I tried a couple years ago to read them, failed, and decided I had to live and read a few years longer before I can understand the genius of their work. Maybe I'll try again soon.

I always forget the plot of the books I've read.

So it's like I've never read anything.

>>7612730
Sounds like your marathon books rather than sipping. I used to have this problem until I started writing a chapter summery, which cemented what I read.

>>7612730

I have this problem too. I forget books completely. It's shit because I don't even get the advantage of enjoying a book more than once because the second time it feels so vaguely familiar and the plot seems stale.

So I can't remember shit from books and end up forgetting the key things, messages, characters, devices and plot of the books :/

Despite having read quite a few, I hesitate and can barely contribute to discussion to books i read some time back.

>>7612707
White Teeth does suck.
McCarthy is a pleb.
Pynchon is hard to love, and that love is hard to describe.
I used to worship Bloom's giant ass. I stopped around age 20.
I've never read Murakami because I can't take any Chinese or Japanese artists seriously.
Faulkner has the unfortunate luck of being overrated and underrated at the same time. He is truly great, but you kind of need to read him in a vacuum away from intrusive critics.

>>7612773
my man

>>7612585
then meditate and contemplate instead.

>>7612575
are you neet ? how long is one reading ?

>>7611796

Sometimes I develop deep crushes on women from books. The most recent was Julia from The Magician King

>>7612796
Elena Greco <3

I enjoy fantasy novels, even trashy ones like WOT and ASOIAF.

>>7612730
This happens to me too. I have read Siddhartha twice, but for fucks sake I can't remember anything about it, even though I remember really enjoying it both times.

>>7612796

Anna "she'll-suck-till-u-pop" Karenina.

>>7611796
I touched myself from the couch scene in Lolita. And I think that might actually be the high point in eroticism to date. So subtle yet so bold.

I regularly criticize books I've never read.

I write fanfiction when I'm stumped on a work and run out of other things to write.

>>7612796
Olivia Presteign from The Stars My Destination, not a sweet character but afterwards I developed a small thing for albino women.

>>7612836

Thanks for actively making /lit/ shittier.

Why?

>>7612808
the fact you know this is a confession says volumes about you as a person and i have infinitely greater respect for you as a consequence.

>>7612844
>Thanks for actively making /lit/ shittier.

np

>Why?


Why not? It kills time.

>>7612850

You know what also kills time?

Reading.

>>7612866
Once I convince myself that a certain book is shit there's no point in reading it.

>>7612850

Better ways to spend that time. Like, perhaps READING THOSE BOOKS.

>>7612869
Kek

>>7612873
That's debatable desu.

>>7612585
(read: I just came over from reddit and read two entry level existentialist texts .. now i'm bored)

nobody who isn't just getting into lit reads those, let me guess, when you say you've 'lost' your will to read you're speaking in reference to highschool when you read shitty YA and scifi books and maybe Infinite Jest

just get the fuck off this board asshole. even if you were a learned scholar, if that's all you've read in the past 3 years you belong on /r9k/

>>7612000
Similar thing happened to me.

>writing novella
>plan a sex scene with tons of tension
>decide to try my hand at erotica for some practice
>turns out I'm way better at writing erotica than I am at anything else
>post my shit on reddit and other forums
>some guy pms me and gives me a link to a site, says he'll pay me $100 per submission if it's good
>fuck it, I'm shameless
>write taboo stories for online mags under a pseudonym (incest/bestiality/cuck/bdsm)
>even end up writing the backstory for a set of pics of a fairly well-known pornstar (Lela Starr)
>at this point I was writing one story a day, and doing extra guerrilla marketing on my own to get more pageviews (in addition to what I'd get for each story, I'd get a piece of ad revenue for hits)
>still working my wageslave job at a department store
>start branching out, took a couple contracts to write screenplays for taboo porn production companies
>keep all of this a secret from my family and friends, I was too ashamed
>one day forget to shut down computer
>girlfriend goes on it to print her boarding pass
>left my email up
>she breaks up with me
>I keep on writing more and more, I barely even read
>dick is red from jerking off four times daily
>stories get shittier and shittier
>essentially start writing fucking rape stories disguised as taboo shit
>in a rare moment of clarity, I realize what an utter fucking lowlife I am
>delete all my fake email accounts, throw away the burn phone I used
>abstain from porn and masturbation for 6 fucking months
>pretend like none of that ever happened

>>7612920
pretty hot. got any more stories like this?

>>7612537
i think you mean finnegan's wake

>>7612954
>finnegan's wake
>finnegan's
>gan's
>n's
>'

>>7612960
Who's wake is it then? Or are they all Bobs?

File: the hell is this slut saying.jpg (63KB, 687x687px) Image search: [Google]

63KB, 687x687px

>>7612919
>Projecting: The Post
Perhaps I should have said they were the only books I've finished in 3 years. I picked up some short stories by Kafka, Don Quixote, and some stuff about the ethical implications of what/how we eat (Singer, Maniates, Cohen, Korsmeyer and some others whose names escape me), but I don't have the motivation/attention-span to finish them.

Sisyphus was partially for babbies first existential crisis, but I read Notes because the narrator reminded me a lot of /r9k/ and myself.

File: asasd.png (2MB, 1100x743px) Image search: [Google]

2MB, 1100x743px

>I didn't read at all till the Winter of 2014.
>Thus far have read 124 titles, with 43 being under 200 pages and 8 being Atlas Shrugged length.

>>7611829
I am still reading a book I started last summer and because we are forced to read new books for the english course I'm taking it looks like it's gonna be a while.

>>7612960
oh
meant Finnegans Wake
happy?

>>7612965
It refers to multiple Finnegans waking

>>7611796
i believe in the idea of an immortal soul and a place where they all gather after death, just because of the foolish wish to have an opportunity to talk to Dostojewski

>>7613018
lol, good luck senpai

>>7612981
Read any good books about traps?

>>7611796
I haven't finished a book in two years.

When reading a book/kindle while commuting, I secretly wish a cute girl notices me and approaches me to inquire what I'm reading. I knw this is pretentious as fuck and I shouldn't care how "bookish" I look to girls.

>>7613054
Cute girls don't read, anon.

>>7613081
>>7613054
>2 days later
>Anon: He loved to read; on the train, in the rain or when his heart was in pain. He took his own life after being told by an anonymous poster that his entire life was a lie and that he was doomed to die alone and unloved. May he Rest in Piece.
He left behind his loving parents and a ton of shitty, pretentious books.

>>7613054
when they ask me all they ever say is "hm-mm" or "oh" or "ha" or just keep quite. Guess they can't handle things like Hegel. Sometimes when I'm in a good mood I'll say, for instance, "Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology" and then it starts getting fun.

Real talk though: they don't care or even read even Twilight for that matter, they just wanna talk to you and maybe suck your dick in the parking lot of Wendys if you play your cards right later that night. So just mention it and talk about normal, typical, weather-like-chit-chat, that they both love and want and cant get enough of.

expecting ppl you randomly meet to not only read stuff but to have any knowledge about it, even silly but popular fiction is extremely hopeful to say the veeeeery least

>>7613081
and this.

I'm a famous musician, but hate it. I hate my band members, I hate the industry, the media, being recognized anywhere, our dumb fans, any fucking thing.
I write my first novel, will publish anonymously, and hope it will become my new career

>>7613155
what tier of famous are we talking?

>tfw hold my own hand in bed as if I'm holding hands with a girl
>tfw circle my thumb on the back of the other hand as if it's a girl
>tfw rub my foot up and down my calf as if it's a girl
>tfw run my fingers up and down and through my chest hair as if it's a girl doing it
>tfw whisper to myself in a feminine voice and reply in a deep whisper complaining jokingly to "her" that I'm tired and need to sleep
>tfw lie in bed and pretend a qt girl is lying with her face towards mine and smiling at me
>tfw fold up my bathrobe and put it between legs as if it's a girl's leg
>tfw kiss empty air pretending I'm kissing a girl
>tfw lie on my back and hold my arm out and then folded at a ninety degree angle to pretend I'm holding a girl who's lying against me
>tfw go through each board on 4chan pretending I'm giving a tour to my girlfriend and giving her a humorous little summary about each one
>tfw watching home videos on my laptop of my family and me as a kid and pretending a qt girl is sitting beside me saying "awww" and smiling and asking who the different people are
>tfw walking home alone and pretending she's walking beside me and think up lengthy dialogue and occasionally laugh at something she or I said in the imagined dialogue
>tfw imagine meeting her family and having them like me
>tfw imagine her meeting my family and us sleeping and talking quietly in my room at home
>tfw imagine her and my mom preparing coffee after dinner and watching her laugh at something my mom says
>tfw imagine making her mom laugh and making her father a little annoyed when she and her mother tell him that he's probably boring me and that I probably want to get to bed after the long journey
>tfw developing several lengthy scenarios involving me and my qt crush and replaying them mentally each night while adding minor details and more dialogue and extending them a little further each day

>>7613158
If you're in the US or Western Europe, you know me, and your parents, too.

File: 1445433269269.png (27KB, 402x348px) Image search: [Google]

27KB, 402x348px

>>7613168
Just get an ASMRfu and order a helium tank Anon, it's not going to get any better.

>>7613173
I need hints please

>>7613173
i mean its 4chan so who knows you could be bullshitting but let's assume you're legit

if you're at that level of fame, wouldn't it be extremely difficult to get a book published anonymously/ pseudonymously? it's no secret publishing is a large part who you know/how you market, and i'm assuming you'd want to leverage your existing fame to get through the door for a book deal, but in that case doesn't it become super hard to keep it under wraps?

>>7613173
>tfw T-Swift may be shitposting in DFW threads.

>>7612845

Really, all it says is that he browses /lit/, accepts the hivemind, and wants to conform to it.

Nothing too bad about that, but hardly the kind of thing that inspires monumental respect breh.

>>7612976

Are you vegetarian? Then that's probably why you can't finish anything and lack constitution and willpower.

Or it may just be stupidity and laziness, I really can't tell.

>>7613191
Sorry, no, won't tell. I'm really looking forward to an anonymous career. If it's revealed that I was here, my publicists, agent, and all the other folks would go crazy ,drive me even crazier

>>7613199
I think you're neglecting to give full consideration to the vacuum the regular hiveminder goes through every now and then when they have the odd moment of quiescence between deciding which hive to fall back to, the /lit/ pseudo-smartguys, who love to pretend to be brainy or the typical internet browser who is so bored and dulled down from external pressures that they watch and read anything that can still incite delight in a body almost bereft of perception, if they had any in the first place. Not to mention this schism itself is already a mentally taxing experience for the average growing man.

>>7613192
I have the connections already. No problem to get a publishing deal, even guaranteed that I stay anonymous. Of course, some people will and must know about it,but get paid to be quiet. I guess it's the same in all art/culture related industries: networking is everything.
Anonymity, of course, won't guarantee a success, but I need to know whether I have writing talent, and not just a famous name.

>>7613230
Not to be funny or anything but do you, like, even read books? May sound rude but ....

>>7613241
sure why ask?

>>7611796
I couldn't get through the first book of the Tales of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever. By chapter 2 I was like, OMG I get it, he's a leper, can we move on please?

>>7613247
I don't know, I'm tired.
Good luck.

>>7613139
this

I get off to the idea Siddhartha got fucked by dudes.

>>7613054
>>7613139
Oh, cute girls read Twilight, but they don't realise it's shit and defend it saying "the movies made it bad"

>>7613206
You're being awfully rude, anon. Did you have a bad day?

>>7613168
LITERARY confession thread

I actually enjoyed Taipei

>>7613263
your cooch must be mega slooshy

>>7612753

I do, ever since I started reading on the iPad.

I was a slow reader before, I'd only read like 8 pages a day, so it tooke months to finish a novel.

After I started reading on the tablet I just scroll down endlessly and, even though I am still a slow reader, it only take like a month or so to finish a nice long novel.

But then I forget them.

I'll try to do that and start doing summarys of what I read. thanks for the advice

File: gland.jpg (198KB, 988x1300px) Image search: [Google]

198KB, 988x1300px

>>7611909

>>7612768
The same happen to me, the other day some guys were talking about the scarlet letter and even though I read the book only a couple of years ago, I couldn't remember anything and I had to read the wikipedia article to refresh my memory.

I'm Tao Lin.

>>7611796
I'm a very slow reader. 10 pages a day is lucky, unless it's very digestible genre fiction

I've been reading Ulysses since September

>>7613456
>>7613301

>>7613541
I know him, he's my biggest fan.

File: tech w.jpg (14KB, 300x300px) Image search: [Google]

14KB, 300x300px

I read only for entertainment.

I read and genuinely enjoy schlock so long as they scratch an itch, and ignore their faults just to derive more pleasure from them.

>>7613294

My day was quite fine, thank you. Apologies for rudeness, but it is truthful nonetheless. I'm just vexed at the amount of people here that spend so much time shitposting and so little reading. It detracts from the quality of the board. What exactly do you do here, if you hardly read? Perhaps you're the guy who criticises books he hasn't read?

>>7613460
One trick I found which helped to quicken my pace with Ulysses was to approach it as if I was reading a short-story collection with recurrent characters and settings, like Dubliners, only triple the size. So each day, I'd sit down, read from the start to the end of a section, think about whatever it meant, and then put the book away for tomorrow.

I found, as with many other things in life, by dividing the larger, daunting whole into several, smaller, achievable chunks, it became a lot less overwhelming, and much more comfy.

This was all aided by Joyce's use of completely different literary styles for each section.

>>7611796
I enjoy JK rowling, and think she's the best author of the 21st century. Not trolling. Her prose is just so comfy and warm. Very talented.

>>7613619
Maybe you just like genre fiction? Her writing style is par the course in that area. Simple, workhorse prose.

>>7613173
well of course I know my parents

File: 1444240805010.jpg (111KB, 674x960px) Image search: [Google]

111KB, 674x960px

I own nearly 200 books

I've read nearly 20 books

Romantically, I have a big soft spot for poetry...

And I've always dreamed of a secret admirer writing their own piece for me.

I like Steinbeck

I think reading philosophy is largely pointless. Interesting, but pointless.

>>7613952
>implying that's a bad thing

File: 01_freakout.jpg (244KB, 953x953px) Image search: [Google]

244KB, 953x953px

I only read so I can tell other people that their taste is shit.

I just finished Dubilners and I only found a couple stories that weren't incredibly boring.

most of the work posted in critique threads is shit and not worth the time to comment on.

>>7614045
pleb

>>7612167
>He fell for the NASA meme

>>7614045
i feel u duke, dubliners is basically shit but since plebs can't ulysses they dubliners and think its good

>>7614050
did u ever notice the only good shit in critique threads is like humorous and/or ironic? has anyone ever written anything good that was sincere in like the last 15 years? and if no, why don't fags get the hint and stop trying

>>7614212
pretty much. everyone's trying too hard to be poetic/smart and getting in their own way of finding their real voice.

The obsession with "voice" is aesthetic bastardization. Third person omniscient is the most honest POV because the writer is the arbiter of the fictional world.

>>7612167
NASA was always just a footnote for the American Empire's war against gommnusm. It was never about science or humanity, which is why they had the audacity to plant that gaudy flag into that pristine rock.

>>7614206
>projecting this hard

File: 1445377217382.png (568KB, 617x850px) Image search: [Google]

568KB, 617x850px

I use 4chan as a sort of taste-filter. If someone shits on something, and I see there are people willing to argument back, and they have good points, my interest gets sort of picked; if there's decent discussion about it, more so.

So far this method hasn't really failed me.

>>7613793
Why would you be sad about having more things to enjoy?

>>7614491
....are you seeing what I'm seeing, anon?

>>7614491
>>7614497
oh those sly designers

>>7611796
I read about people making notes on the margins and realised I have nothing to write on margins. I can explain to myself why I liked this or that book/author/character, but when I write it down it doesn't make much sense and/or sounds too shallow.

Also I read too much about books rather than reading them, if I spent an hour a day which I browse the boards to read books, I would've read much more books. I read slowly and tend to read many books at time, depending on my mood.

File: James May after testing a delorian at 141.6 kph.jpg (167KB, 525x700px) Image search: [Google]

167KB, 525x700px

>>7611909
>Wanting humanity to get off this rock
>Not hoping for full eradication of sapience sooner rather than later
Not edgy enough my friend.

>>7614491
ohhh dat design

File: despair cat small.jpg (4KB, 171x158px) Image search: [Google]

4KB, 171x158px

I find it extremely hard to focus on my reading in the computer, and because Im poor I depend on it.
Hold me.

File: 1453447987907.jpg (42KB, 595x720px) Image search: [Google]

42KB, 595x720px

I still don't understand how to read.

I don't understand what makes a book good.

I don't see why poetry has to be such a fucking circle jerk.

What's so fucking good about nature.

If this really was a literature board you'd have a fucking section in non-fiction for sociology;
it'd cross the entire century and strands with recommended journal reading stripped from
university reading courses.

As well as history.

Wow look at how ironic you're going to be.

Literary Confession: Fuck you. It's okay to experience - you want to be a castrated faggot, go to /pol/, you'll feel at home - no such shit as edgy. Inauthentic modes of existence are an ideological superstructure to be digested by its own inadequacy. Maybe in fifty years, maybe never.

>>7612167
do you expect anon to just find scientific study better than material gain and power just because you said so?

>>7614968
>he fell for the non fiction meme

kek'd

>>7612796
But Julia is a horrible bitch.

>>7613054
I'm a female and hope some cute guy will ask me about what I'm reading.
When I see a cute guy with a book I'm too shy to ask what they are reading or if they are reading a book I love I'm to scared to say anything.

>>7614968
you have issues. you reach out to poke /pol/ in the eye but that really doesn't come close to solving anything.

File: 1453405389930.jpg (76KB, 646x465px) Image search: [Google]

76KB, 646x465px

>>7615048
sick

>>7613054
that's very unlikely anon.

wrote story about depressing youth, 60k words and now shelved.
>get new job, start writing about tragicomic life. >Fact and fiction are getting muddled: stuff I write about starts happening irl. Stop writing the story...

File: 1446916464651.jpg (159KB, 746x982px) Image search: [Google]

159KB, 746x982px

>>7615076
>Fact and fiction are getting muddled: stuff I write about starts happening irl.
i know that feel

>>7612795
>Nah, in School, reading takes around 20 minutes

>>7615056

I know :/ But I still feel conscious about women around me while commuting and reading. It's so detestable.

>>7613081

I know exactly 1 cute girl who reads. But she has a bf and I am bad at talking. So I just sent her a goodreads friend request.

>>7613108
The books I read are alright imo.

>>7613139
At least they talk to you

>>7615044
I'd ask women what they were reading if I came across any who I could see reading at a place where I could approach them and if I had the courage to risk coming across as a creep.

>>7613168
holy shit are you me?

I am even more pathetic is that I used to do all of this with my cute cousin but you know.. I've lost her to Chronos. Between my age of 12 - 16 I loved her, she was 7 years younger than me. I have never been attracted more to a girl than to her. But eventually then she grew up, society hammered some 'sense' into her. She hit puberty very early.

Nowadays when I see her we talk briefly but I still catch her staring at me with her lovely blue eyes.

So nowadays I too spend my nights like you, longing for the girl that doesn't exist anymore. Last week I even went as far as dressing up a pillow in clothes that remind me of her. The soft cotton and bow ties on her short summer dress.

;_;

>>7615044
What would I have to read to pick you up bb?
Also
LONDON
O
N
D
O
N

>>7615260
It was a little weird at first but then you just went full creeper

>>7615272
Sounds like society gave you a little too much 'sense' too.

>>7615272
As I mentioned I do realize that it is pathetic. It is just that I miss her warmth and who she was. Seeing as this is a type of relationship shunned by society I will never be able to experience this again. Sometimes I see things remind me of her and that makes me feel warm and tingly inside. I just wish to go back and be frozen in time with her. Reality is sometimes too harsh for me to handle. When I write poems for her or think about her when im going for a long walk I can escape my daily worries and daydream about that lovely time.

>>7613018
i also believe in a soul, but i have no idea what happens to it after death

>>7615260
So, you were turned on by a five year old?

>>7613952
i love steinbeck

I thought I had developed a unique prose style until someone posted a scan of a page from McElroy's Women and Men in a thread about pomo lit the other day, and I found out I had somehow become influenced by McElroy before ever reading anything he's written. Kind of made me hate every piece of shit I've ever written thus far.

Also I often entertain the idea of referencing /mu/core while writing in prose styles clearly copying /lit/core writers as though I'm going to somehow spearhead a 4chan-centric literary movement, and without fail I always feel like a huge fucking faggot when I realise how shitty it is to write Pynchonian conspiracy stories with Stirnerist egoist themes and an abundance of references to krautrock and shit, as though any normies will care about anything I write, and knowing full well that any other 4chan browsers would think my work to be utter shit because of the gay ass references throughout

I don't actually enjoy reading. I enjoy the idea of reading and having read a lot of books

Since the moment I start a new book I instantly wish it was already over.

I think people to be ignorant if they don't enjoy a certain type of genre


I haven't read in months

I lie about liking to read in order to not seem like I'm forcefully pretentious

>>7613173
Wtf. This can't be real. I also am a worldwide famous musician.

>>7612032

Thank you, I genuinely laughed at that :)

I honestly enjoy reading the Chronicles of Narnia more than Lord of the Rings

>>7615392
>but i have no idea what happens to it after death
Try exploring religion and find out?

>>7615606
Okay, I'll try Hinduism. Thanks Anon!

>>7612920
This has the potential to make an incredible novel/movie.

>>7611796
I borrowed two copies of Ulysses from the library and have yet to read either.

>>7612920
They say /lit/ is only an extension of /r9k/


But they say a lot of things

>>7613619
Harry Potter is mega comfy, true, and it will always reignite nostalgia for me, but I don't know if I could personally say the best author of the 21st century.

I personally think we've yet to discover the greatest writer of the early 21st century.

>>7613952
But that's a good thing. People that say they don't like Steinbeck are showing off because they don't like to unwind with a comfy novel or novella about early 1900s Americana.

>>7612920
>write serious novella trying to capture my zeitgeists
>publishers and agents spit it back in my face with barely concealed disgust
>write short stories and poetry for publication in respectable periodicals
>editors and submissions people don't even reply to me
>write schlocky short fiction to hone my skills and submit to some lowkey zines
>get continually rejected in favor of terrible garbage that is somehow still better than me
>give up on writing
>go on my home 4chan board
>shitpost
>get bored one jobless afternoon
>write half-joking gay sex fanfic post about four characters the board likes to meme about
>it's incredibly well-received
>bunch of gay dudes say i'm some sort of gay sex visionary
>write more
>people start reposting it offsite
>tfw i start writing gay sex fanfiction just to feel wanted
>tfw not gay

>>7615847
>People that say they don't like Steinbeck are showing off because they don't like to unwind with a comfy novel or novella about early 1900s Americana.
Such projection. Maybe we just find uncomfy? Hey?

I don't like Dostoyevsky. I think his writing is boring and nothing but philosophical ranting.

>>7615868
I guess my post was hyperbolic. To each their own, of course. I always just found him very enjoyable.

>>7615860
>capture my zeitgeists
You can't have several Zeitgeists, you can't have your own Zeitgeist, there's only one Zeitgeist for everyone

Closet faggots misusing German REEEEEEEEE

I don't actually read really. The times I do, I usually stop about a chapter or two before the ending. It's a fuckin odd habit.
I even do this with other forms of media, particularly video games which I rarely play also.

>>7613155
Hey T! It's Ed! Found it! lol!

>>7611796
I fucking hate modernist novels. I fucking hate anything written and set in the early twentieth century. They're just so fucking boring to me.
>>7613173
Whoa dude, same here.

>>7615260
Write a roman à clef and say it's inspired by Lolita.

>>7611796
I don't know read.

China Mieville's complete lack of originality repulses me, if he published in any different genre/house he would've been sued for IP/copyright infringement.

>>7611950
Wait!?¿!
I´m doing the same thing...
!!!

if i had my old social circle back and the girl i loved was close enough to see every day i probably would barely read at all

>>7613952

Only a fucking edgelord wouldn't.

>>7611796
I read everything from trash to patrician books.
I have not read all the books recommended by /lit/
I read stepbrother inked by Violet Blaze and was annoyed by wrong use of Japanese.
koban series has turned to pure shit but most of the time I give a pity extra star since the writer is an old man and I don't want him to feel bad.

File: wlaking_crow.png (801KB, 640x899px) Image search: [Google]

801KB, 640x899px

>>7611796

me on the left

>>7616382
>Only a fucking edgelord wouldn't.

95% of religious fanataics (i.e. idiotas) use this

>>7613173
Wtf? Same.
>>7613727
Underr8d

File: hpl[1].gif (51KB, 254x343px) Image search: [Google]

51KB, 254x343px

I like lovecraft, i really enjoy reading his stories, but i fear i'll be called pleb if i say it aloud. I dont think there is anything wrong with him, probably that he is popular among plebs.

I want to write a story but beyond notes I cannot get motivated to do so.

>>7616554
Lovecraft was a pleb and he was proud of it.

Instead of evoking some deified high art, he stuck to his unusual themese and won the world. Joyce doesnt have even half the influence ol Howard has.

File: gosling.jpg (123KB, 625x417px) Image search: [Google]

123KB, 625x417px

>>7615637
Yeah, I can see that. I'd like the gooseman to play me.

File: Blog_your-opinion[1].jpg (42KB, 480x365px) Image search: [Google]

42KB, 480x365px

>>7616613

>>7616613
>influence
Like the Beatles amiright?

>>7616636
Actually, this is pretty much facts.

I love modernists to death, but Howard won in the end.

>>7616669
yeah, if you're like 14 and still reading books with no style to them.

>>7611796
I like fantasy shit. I only read it for fun.

I thought it would be fun to take a break from real lit and read through Neal Stephenson. I liked Snow Crash, Diamond Age, and Anathem a lot. But now I have 100 pages left on Cyrptonomicon and it has been such a boring slog that I regret wasting the last month of my life reading it

File: 1452180479853.gif (278KB, 600x600px) Image search: [Google]

278KB, 600x600px

>>7616673
>A: Person X has a large influence/legacy
>B: Erm, no.
>A: How so?
>B: Because I measured their influence in a sample I handpicked myself

>>7615040

At the time I was infatuated with an girl irl who pretended to be huge book nerd. Julia in that book, when she was crazed with learning everything that she could about magic, reminded me of her. Too bad that the girl irl turned out to be a narcissistic SJW.

>>7616613
it depends on what you count as influence. many namedrop him without reading any of his works or claiming him as an influence because they book also has a fugly interdenominational monster. I would still say he is big

>>7614491
I'm that person, I think you mean piqued rather than picked*. I agree.

>>7611796
Writing has become my only hobby so I've read 10 books in 23 days. Most recently, I tested out John Green with TFIOS and LFA and read The Catcher In The Rye and The Perks Of Being A Wallflower. I found the first two to be a bit predictable, and the latter to be interesting.

In any case, I'll stick to my non-YA fiction. Reading The Green Mile now.

>>7616910
whoops, reading* not writing. Though I am writing a novel too!

>>7611796
I haven't opened Moby Dick in 3 weeks

I'm on chapter 3

>>7616554
there's nothing wrong with lovecraft

>>7616554
Nothing wrong with Lovecraft. He's everybody's first weird fiction writer but that's for a very good reason, anon. He's pretty easily accessible but I wouldn't quite call it pleb like YA fiction.

I find myself far more attached to Proust and Tolstoy over Joyce and Dosto.

Not really a confession, but what does that say about me?

>>7617270
That you're a faggot

>>7617270
Not much, Tolstoy is objectively superior to Dosto and Proust is a perfectly fine rival to Joyce

>tfw bf is an ignorant swine who hasn't read any books
i want to throw books at him like tomato slices 2bh

>>7617307
>being gay

>>>/Reddit/

Moby Dick should have actually been called 'Don't read this shit book' and Herman Melverley should have been shot and burried with the manuscript.

Infinite Jest is boring as fuck

haha I wrote out like ten paragraphs then I deleted them all because I'm too embarrassed of what a shit person I am even to admit it anonymously to you guys

why am I so obsessed with my faults? why can't I just be one of those happy few who aren't obsessed with self-image?

anyway, here's the most common thing I came up with:

>I act as though I've read X, but I've only read <50% of X

>I don't read as much as I think I'm supposed to read

>>7618517
Please tell us anon, we are all weird as fuck here

>>7618525
I speak in the most reverent tones about Augustine, and will put my name to any number of statements about his brilliance

in truth, I've read only a couple of chapters of his confessions and one book of De Trinitate, as well as a little bit of the City of God.

that's just one of my many literary sins

I also, for example, tend only to read things I agree with, and mostly loathe having my views challenged

also I hate talking to other literary people. if I end up in a conversation with someone who has read more of the Faerie Queene than I have, I just want to die

File: tennyson in memoriam.jpg (75KB, 762x762px) Image search: [Google]

75KB, 762x762px

I buy old books and then I never read them because I don't want to damage them

pic related, In Memoriam

if I had just bought some shit penguin paperback I would have read the whole thing twice and not worried about lost value

>>7618533

Are you me?

actually I'm working hard to get out of that rut. audiobooks help.

>>7614968
You had some good prose poem going there until you got to the literary confession. Make the sociology chart.

>>7617307

Find better bf. He sounds like a shit head. What do you like to read?

Bioshock: Rapture by John Shirley is my favorite book.

>>7613173
I would want to kill myself if I was part of some famous dadrock band that played the same "hits" over and over.

>>7619163
but we love you thom. play no surprises again.

>>7611796
i don't like James Joyce

I think John Green is a good person.

I don't like to read.

Everyone of my friends thinks I'm some really good writer, because sometimes I like building worlds, but I never do anything with them, because they usually would need both sound, and visuals to make sense, and I can't animate for shit, and don't know how to portray it all in a meaningful way
A few of them are asking when I'm gonna finish something and I don't know how to tell them.

i like vonnegut, murakami and steinbeck

everything i write about is plagiarized from someone else but hey, if you steal enough things from multiple places, no one will notice

>>7613155
o i am laffin

I love the concept of lovecraftian horror, but hate how lovecraft did it, and haven't found anyone who I think did it well yet
(side note, anyone have any writers who also did a sort of Lovecraft horror genre??)

>>7613155
What's Zachary Cole Smith like in person?

File: 1409355328680.jpg (23KB, 248x254px) Image search: [Google]

23KB, 248x254px

The more I read the more insecure I become of my own reading abilities.

I mean the last 10 books I read I didnt like and I cant help but wonder if I was just too stupid to enjoy them.

>>7622145
nah man if you dont like a book it doesn't mean anything besides that it just wasn't for you
everyone has things that they like, and sometimes it doesn't even follow a pattern
its always a hit and a miss, no such thing as being too stupid for it

>>7622105
>Steinbeck

He's not a meme, you know.

>>7611796

I've enjoyed books by James Clavell and James Michener (which are typically thought of as airport/genre fiction) more than any "great" book that i've read.

I've probably read only about 25 novels.
I don't care that much and consider it to be a symptom of 'only reading the best literature has to offer' rather than considering myself unread.

I haven't been able to read more than 100 pages of a book since about one year and a half now. Mainlynbecause of depression.

>>7619103

>reading is the only thing that matters in a partner

god, i can smell the desperation through my computer screen

>>7622316

No, that's irony. It smells metallic with a hint of mint.

>>7622268
top pleb

>>7611993
I had my first existential crisis at 17. 3 years later at 20, I found the meaning to life. So hang in there, it gets shit before it gets better.

I read and enjoy harry potter fanfiction

come at me gentlemen

>>7615492
>>7616433
>>7616151
Holy shit me too!! Want to collab on the dl? Let's make an anonymous supergroup for anonymity

i'm 21 and i havn't read anything in years
in my life i've read about 40-50 book which mostly was local authors and basic af /litcore/
i dont even like reading i come here for shits 'n gigiles

>>7613054
>re-reading Genealogy of Morals while waiting on an oil change
>guy walks by "Oh hey, are you reading Nietzche?"
>y-yeah, he's my favorite
>"Haha yeah me too, nihilism is so cool. Will to power, am I right?"
Men are just too brutish and violent to understand a kind and genuine soul like Nietzsche's.

I'm not proud of my life :(

>>7616945
dont push yourself to read books you dont like

give up and read something that sounds better

books are meant to be ENJOYABLE anon

>>7622105
>I have a taste that doesnt fall into line of people on a anonymous anime website

waaah. for real though, i like all of them too. they all make fun books 2bh

>>7621152
I don't think he's bad either, just disgusting.

Iv never read a book without refrencing Wikipedia for plot

>>7612920
NOW TELL YOUR STORY!

>>7622122
It's like you don't understand what an author actually is, holy shit

>>7622589
so 2004/early-years-in-a-working-class-comprehensive-school, chap

I enjoy reading

>>7622154
not him but love you senpai

>>7623947
GTFO

already fapped once today, might fap again

>>7624161
If I wake up early I get in 4 before noon.
8 for the whole day.

I read for 3-4 hours a day too, though. Forcedly.

>>7619129
>intredasting.mobi
I might have to pick that up. I really liked John Shirley's contributions to founding cyberpunk with the Eclipse series.

I fapped to the scene where alex rapes two 12 year olds in his bedroom in A Clockwork Orange (the book)

>>7611796
I teach math at a community college and a student came up to me and asked me if I'd read Gravity's Rainbow. I have, but he's a fedora wearer so I didn't tell him that. He launched into this weird scattershot of half the plot points and tried tying it into math and how the plot was shaped like a parabola (GRAVITY'S RAINBOW LMAO). I just went, "Huh", and left.

I haven't been able to read Pynchon again since then. Why am I confronted by so many autists who need me to be their surrogate friend? Can they recognize something familiar in me? I'm a big guy, work out, and don't talk about nerdy shit, but they always seek me out. Am I just an asshole?

>>7625740
you smell like 4chan

>>7624167
Your life sounds awful

>>7625740
be gentle the kid just wants to talk about a book he really likes

I own many, many copies of classic books published by Wordsworth Classics.

>>7612832
me too, friend

i dont understand vonnegut hate, unless its just a lighthearted contrarian joke of sorts. ive only read cats cradle, slaughterhouse 5 and that short story collection but they were all very **fun** reads that never infuriated me with shitty prose or storytelling. Is it just that the novels are sometimes a bit "lol random" or what?

>>7625772
they are regarded as 'reddit-tier'

>>7613250
Wow that's my favourite series. Persevere, it's truly rewarding. I own and have read all 10 books.

>>7625794
Why are people so obsessed with reddit?

>>7625861
because of le 4chins mustard race xd

reactionary to a real or perceived influx of redditors frequenting the board after a /lit/ 'recommended books' list made it to the imgur front page

File: comfy.jpg (9KB, 147x250px) Image search: [Google]

9KB, 147x250px

I'll speak for most people here on /lit/....

They don't read nearly as much as the put on. In fact, they often argue about books they haven't read.

Many of those charts are not made by some top tier /lit/ patrician master of his jizz throne... it's merely some pleb amalgamating a list off of amazon/good reads and posting it here.

I mean have you ever visited the /lit/ tinychat? Well, it really gives you a good insight into who hides behind the tittle of anon and act like a dick when people come here for genuine discussions not pertaining to the meme cult culture which resides here.

File: On Intelligence.jpg (4KB, 106x160px) Image search: [Google]

4KB, 106x160px

>>7612098
Excellent quote, this is actually a modern theory on how human intelligence works.

Read "On Intelligence" if you want to know about the theory. The relevant part is about how chaotic sensory input is categorized and synthesized to produce invariant objects in the world around us.

>>7625870
>>7625861
there's a definite change in the quality of posts from a couple of months ago.

>>7625870

>mustard race

Genuinely laughed.

File: merrily merrily.jpg (44KB, 364x561px) Image search: [Google]

44KB, 364x561px

>>7626165
Thanks for the recommendation man I'll get on it
Care to share any epistemological or existential insight?

I read with Sparknotes. They enrich the reading experience and draw attention to this I might otherwise overlook.

>>7611796
I thought the funeral procession riot from a tale of two cities was hilarious and laughed a full five minutes.

>>7625740
Pynchon sucks, anon. those are the type of people that sort of literature attracts. Remember this, as it has been an important lesson for you. Even teachers can learn a few things from their students.

I read Ulysses without reading Dubliners or Portrait Of an Artist first.

>>7612098
What am I supposed to do with this Kant quote. Is there somehow consolation in this that I miss?

>>7626894
Why would you need consolation?

>>7614497
what are you guys seeing