How do I learn to appreciate style/elegance in literature? I've

>>18532881
Read a whole bunch of regular common shit.
Then read mythology
Then read canon poetry.

Then start at the bottom and work upwards
Like Vonnegut, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, and all the way up to Joyce.

I'm not saying this is a list of quality. Vonnegut is my favourite author.
But it's a list of complexity in prose.

>>18532889
>Read a whole bunch of regular common shit.
I've been a pretty avid read the past year or 2. I can comprehend what I'm read well most of the time, but I just don't have any grasp of beauty in the writing. so basically I just need to keep reading?

It depends on what you're reading when you say classics. And if you're going immediately back to older stuff, it might be difficult to really grasp the significance when you're trying to wade through another era's vernacular.

Maybe go into more contemporary stuff and then work your way back, if you're finding it difficult to follow. Plenty of good stuff has been written in the last century or so. Maybe you could try poetry as a place to begin to understand the music that can come through words. Even just music. What do you like in the lyrics of your favorite song?

The truth is that it's fairly subjective. There is plenty of disagreement as to what is good. If you're reading looking for the significance of the words, chances are you might not find them. Absorb yourself in the prose. Maybe read once just to soak it all in, and then again to try and analyse. I don't really know your struggle here, but it seems you might be overthinking it.

>>18532906
that could be it. perhaps I go in expecting to be blown away, instead of just reading casually and going along with the ride

Yeah, A-B some stuff. Pick up some trash airport novel, then compare that with some good quality prose. Play spot the difference - plot development, characterisation, sentence structure, richness of vocabulary, etc.

>>18532933
Ah there you go. I find it better to read having no expectations going in. Y'know, don't judge a book by its cover, or its author, or what other people are saying about it.

>>18532971
>Y'know, don't judge a book by its cover, or its author, or what other people are saying about it.
so, not trying to be a smartass here but how do you decide what you want to read?

>>18532977
That's the hard part. I used to read reviews, but that just ended up ruining the experience for me. Honestly I just like to either pick one based on author, or out of recommendation. I try not to pass judgement until I read it though. It's possible to pick books without expecting them to be anything more than a book.

Sometimes those recommendations are shit, sometimes good authors write bad books, but I can't have known that until I've finished.

>>18532881
Maby you don't like books

try out trying stealthy meta type of books like The Name of the Rose. Kinda made in all you can eat layers beginning from the easiest one to get, actual murder mystery and then here are some more demanding ones like historical scenery, religion and books in religion theme, maybe more idr and then you are getting medieval ideology vs this postmodernism the book is pushing with this same structure

can you imagine what you are reading?

start with the greeks