Literary Confessions Thread

I don't think erotic romance books are trashy at all

>>8538072
any reccs?

>>8538067
The first chapter to Brave New World sucks. I don't think I'm going to finish reading it.

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I don't know if I'm too stupid or if my attention span lacks body, but I cannot read Karenina for more than thirty minutes without having at least one aneurysm.

Same thing with Karamazov. These Russians sure do like hefty prose.

I never even learned to read

I only read books that I know are good

I think James Joyce is a meme-tier hack who only got popular because people didn't -- and still don't -- understand the difference between complicated prose and good writing.

>>8538125
have you read Dubliners?

>>8538078
2nded

>>8538072
Not really a confession. Lolita is nice.

>>8538125
James Joyce is legitimately a talented prose stylist but he needs to get his head out of his wife's ass and learn about restraint

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>>8538144
I would prefer it if you hadn't done that, friend.

>>8538171
She kills herself by jumping in front of a train which parallels vronsky's heroism when the first meet

Come at me fag

Tolstoy is inferior to Dostoevsky. The man cannot write anything even slightly dramatic.

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>>8538067
>secretly wants to read the nerdiest D & D and sword and socrcery stuff but is already a too much of a nerd and it would activate untold magnitudes of neckbeard and autism.

My virginity would be retroactively reinstated if I pushed it.

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>>8538067
Most of what I read is to make myself seem clever but I'm too embarrassed to tell people what I'm reading so it's all for nought.

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>>8538174
Joke's on you, I won't remember this.

>>8538195
Jokes on you that means you're retarded

>>8538072
also could get into this

I stopped reading the Trial because the wall of text put me off.

I don't really read anymore.

The last time I regularly did was 5 years ago, when I was trying to impress my neighbor's daughter by reading to her in English. She had never read or heard 'formal language' in English before then so it worked.

>>8538125
have you read Portrait?

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I love To Aru Majutsu no Index.
The characters and WW3 is unironically one of the best things i have ever read.
But I am too embarrassed to ever talk about it since it looks pretty anime.

I'm reading nothing but /lit/ top 100

Is there anyone who's read the entire Summa Theologica?

Mrs. Dalloway > To the Lighthouse

>>8538427
I own the entire Summa Theologica. But I would at least like to read the Bible first

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>I stopped reading The Last Days of Socrates because Plato is actually boring

>I still haven't read my 2 volumes of Schopenhauer's Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung because of the preface in which Schopenhauer demands a good understanding of Kant alongside his own dissertation piece. I took a detour with Nietzsche and realized that Kant (and by extension, metaphysics) are a complete waste of time that started with Plato's 2000+ year old wild goose chase in which we must assume that our senses provide an inaccurate/untrustworthy testimony of the world

>I've barely read any of Joyce because his refusal to tow the grammatical line strikes me as endlessly infantile

>I still haven't read Confederacy of Dunces. I have loads of books that I haven't even opened, and probably never will

>I'm probably a pseudo-intellectual thanks to all the /lit/ memes, but I am reading more and I'm definitely more intelligent than most of the plebs whom I encounter

>>8538067
>>8538072
>>8538078
>>8538083
>>8538084
>Same thing with Karamazov

I love brothers Karamazov and Russian literature in general because of how it relates to this movie which is like the greatest movie on Russian history ever made:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIuW-vNQsQI

>>8538067
Virginia Woolf is my favorite author.

>>8538680
Mine also. That's not a rare sentiment here at all.

The unabridged Les Miserables is the only book I've read cover to cover. I've stopped halfway on books 250 pages in length. Dunno why.

i refuse to read any novels from before about 1880

i just can't stand that old prose style

I've read ~30 books this year so far


25 of them were audiobooks

>>8538712
"read"

>>8538067
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is one of my favorite books, I know it's pretty plebby but it's really funny and I personally connect to all the drug references.

I didn't read 1984 till a month ago.

Otherwise my favorite writers are Woolf and Borges.

>>8538718
I take that back, I can't connect to the mescaline referances. I think that's something that's been phased out.

>>8538718
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas rocks. proud 2 b a pleb

I say I love reading because some books are fucking fantastic, but most books (including classics) don't hold my attention and are just boring to me. I hate it, but I can't help it.

I sometimes leave books unfinished for months.
My obsession with having a pretty shelf is becoming unhealthy.
I buy too many books.

/lit/'s favorite memes - Gravity's Rainbow, Infinite Jest, Ulysses, Blood Meridian - are all excellent, worthwhile books. They get spammed here so often that they can't possibly live up to the hype, and most of the derision you see stems from this failure to meet expectations (along with a healthy dose of contrarianism).

In reality, if you read only /lit/ memes, you would be pretty well read compared to the average reader, let alone the average person who probably reads next to nothing.

My favorite novel is Gravity's Rainbow.

>>8538067
I don't get blood meridian

>>8538403
She was 12 btw

>>8538379
the audiobook is on YouTube

>>8538788
IJ is for garbage men who eat garbage and live in the garbage yard and root about in its large piles of filth

>>8538820
I doubt you've read it.

>>8538792
What don't you get about it?

Like you can't parse the text itself or you're having trouble putting the thematic elements of the work together?

If it's the latter read some of the gnostic crit about the work. It's really interesting and where the whole 'The Judge is the demiurge who forged the world against the greater godhead' chatter comes from.

>>8538832
Link please? Sounds like just what I need.

>>8538824
I doubt you're not a garbage man.

>>8538788
No shitting, kerlock

>>8538845
>>8538845
I think the originator of the line of thought was Leo Daugherty.

I had to go to my university's library to find the essay. But there are similar things and responses to it online, just search for Gnosticism and Blood Meridian.

>>8538712
Are you me?

>>8538067
White Noise was nowhere near as good as the hype led me to believe. All style, no substance (hyperbole).

He should just write poetry.

I should clarify that I did like the book overall. I don't mean to say it was terrible when I say it disappointed. His prose is good, but its not good enough in want of substance. So much of the book is empty. He has the occasional insight, and neat observation, and it can be funny at times too. Some parts are absolutely brilliant, but I think this is a high-school tier book; it's good, but you need to read it when you're young. I liked Delillo's falling man much better actually.

One of the best parts was when Jack was telling his dad about what Murray said to him and he replied "What is he, a Jew?" Made me bust a gut laughing.

Dune is my favorite book
I also really like pleb sci fi like 'lectric sheep, 1984, f451, and necromancer.

>>8538885
*neuromancer

>>8538871
Falling Man was on german school curriculum a few years ago. But I agree with you on White Noise, also I get angry just thinking that I've finished it. The characters were barely human, fake, synthetic stand-ins for the half cooked themes and ideas the narrative is centered about. The barn episode is so on the nose it's almost embarassing. Why not write an essay on simulacra instead of a boring ass novel??

>>8538966
Money.

I used to hate Shakespeare when I was younger

>>8538885
Dune was good right up until the baby girl showed up towards the end. It was like Game of Thrones in space, but with a more in-depth exploration of the underlying economic structure.

Neuromancer is patrish sci-fi. I'd even say Snowcrash and The Diamond Age are patrish at this point given how influential they were among early internet users and how prevalent the internet has become now.

>>8538067
I think men are disgusting. I think our best and brightest should be pumped for their semen and slaughtered. Erase all old media -- get rid of the idea and notion of masculinity. Start again.

We are too emotionally limited to be people.

>>8538998
Hi Valerie.

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I hope my purchase of this book will take my Science fiction/fantasy addict mom by surprise.

The bookstore owner and I thought it was a book about Autism.

>>8538083
Huh. In my opinion it was the only good chapter of the book. U best jump ship

I don't like Dostoyevsky

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>>8538067
I love murder mystery books, im like a vored housewife with these things. They dont even have to be that good and most are the same plots, charatcers, and themes (but some are different)
they can all be bargin bin/ NY times best seller shelf books and Ill still buy them. Ttheyre my guilty pleasure

i'm still having trouble deciphering the trial

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>>8538120
every one does that

>>8538446
A pseudo-intellectual like yourself is above a plebeian yes. But you are still below an intellectual and even more inferior to a patrician

>>8539334
>decipher the trial

Stephen King is one of my favorite authors.

>>8539306
This was me in middle school, before I really got into literature. It was like an addiction: I didn't care how bad they were, I just needed more.

I've only read fantasy for the past three years

>>8538148
Kekkèd with intensity

>>8538067
Dropped 1984 halfway through because it's completely redundant when its themes are so prevalent nowadays

>>8538084
Read P&V daddy

I only finished High School.

>>8538125
You're all sorts of wrong

>I cant make heads or tails of it; therefore no one can.

Is 9/11 the logical conclusion to the 20th century or the tone setter of the 21st century? Both is too easy of an answer unless you have a good argument

>>8539418
but how do you know it's good if you haven't read it ? seriously, i want to learn your technique.

>>8539822
On a related note:
http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2009/03/reality_responds_to_the_matrix.html

>>8538718
>>8538744
It's not pleb to appreciate one of the last works of honest and serious journalism.

>>8539822
>a good argument
Time conceived as a place where 9/11 can come to presence at all must be linear and therefore every event relates to the events that precede and follow it by definition. This isn't hard.

>>8538885
DADOES and Neuromancer aren't pleb r-right?

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>>8539828
I just go to /lit/ and find books haven't been disappointed yet

I am an unabashed naval gazing mental masturbator and indulge in copious amounts of literature relating to analytic metaphysics. fucking fight me continental shite hacks

>>8538067

I will never erase all the horrible gaps in my reading

>>8538885
i'm reading Dune and really trying to enjoy it, but fuck even The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was better.

Neuromancer is fucking brilliant

reading's gay
and so am I
that's why I read
check my quads

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>>8539999
Nice

I've started Paradise Lost like five times. Each time I've been completely enthralled by it, but I've never progressed past the end of the first book.

I don't understand what's wrong with me.

>>8539999
the fucking madman

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>>8539999

>>8538680
>>8538688

The Waves made me cry for 200 pages.

>>8538084
I have the same problem with Notes From Underground. I really enjoyed Crime and Punishment, but I find Notes From Underground to be supremely frustrating. It's the P&V translation, too.

>>8539941
i was disappointed by pale fire

>>8538680
You and the rest of /lit/

A lot of these are hardly confessions.

Here's mine: I'm a man and I cry at the end of most books. If someone's around me I'll do my best to stop it and/or hide the tears, but if not I just let them go.

>>8540060
I fully teared up while reading The Hollow Men in public, so I know how you feel.

>>8538146
Kek

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I just want a Jewish mistress who will let me read to her and worship her feet.

>>8538446
>that Kant (and by extension, metaphysics)
What is epistemology

>>8538067
I've developed my own philosophy out of the half-imagined snippets I've read about Hegel and Nietzsche through /lit/.

It's amazing. Deff going to change the world.

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I don't like what /lit/ has become.

>>8540499

/lit/ was always like this

Before /lit/ was, shitposting waited for it.

>>8540499
I like how you can tell the last two threads were written by the same person.

>>8539238
explain yourself

>>8540060
Yeah I get like that too senpai. Catharsis. I usually tend to dislike novels that cannot deliver on that front.

I take and steal books from "free books" stands and "take one, leave one" places and from university library giveaways and such and sell them online.

>>8540974
His writing is bad and his stories only exist to make a philosophical point. He should have just not bothered with fiction and written pure philosophy instead of pretending to be a writer of literature. And people worship him for being a writer with muh philosophy when he wasn't even a good writer.

>>8538187
I regularly have similar concerns about this for myself, despite being a reasonably well assimilated cyborg.
been cutting waaay back on my anime consumption lately for similar reasons

>>8538191
>Most of what I read is to make myself seem clever but

Congratulations, you have become the physical manifestation of this board.

>>8539822
Might need the 21st century to play out a little more before you can fairly argue either way.

>>8538427
i read around half of it (jumping around/skipping sections, not just the first half). i assume i've read more of the summa than everyone else on this board put together.

>>8541885
worth it?

>>8541889
sort of. i did it cause i got memed hard by dante
>dude la commedia is SUMMA IN VERSE

it's certainly interesting/arguably crucial if you're deep into catholic theology but for anyone who's not autistically interested in catholic theology and/or dante i wouldn't recommend it. just read the part on the five methods (by far the most famous/memed section) and you're fine. it's literally one page out of ~2000.

parts that i thought were interesting/somewhat memorable:
-the vision of god towards the end of times
-discussion of the various christian virtues (foundational for dante's Paradiso)
-the parts on grace (esp. as contrasted/compared to augustine)

I didn't like The Old Man and the Sea. The ending really got to me, but other than that I didn't really care. Santiago was likeable enough, but the prose just felt so repetitive and lazy. If Hemingway's books are all like, I can't imagine I'll be reading much more of him.

>>8542451
That isn't an unpopular opinion on here

Confessed but did not deny , I've only read a single book by william faulkner. OF course it was the sound and the fury. AM I A PSEUD?

I listened to more audiobooks then i read books

I've still never read Animal Farm.

I haven't read a book for about a month now but still lurk /lit/ frequently.

I'm unhappy with the current state of the board and not sure if it can be fixed at all. An angry anon made a long post detailing how we've oversimplified our thoughts and responses and how people use to regularly use the character limit. When I think about that, I feel like helping the cause but then I realize I don't have much to say. Feels bad, man.

Bret Easton Ellis is my favourite author.

>>8538427
There were a few genuine Thomists running around here for a few years. Don't know if they're still around but their threads were good.

>>8538885
I'm not a /lit/ expert but I fucking love the books you listed and Dune is on the list(the entire collection is rare to find here)

>>8544080
ur a fag

>>8538067
I think late Tolstoy's boring

I mostly read children's literature aimed at 9 to 13 year olds. It was embarrassing going into the kid's section of the library at first but now I no longer care. I just have a huge backlog of stuff I wanted to read as a kid or should have read as a kid but never did. I just finished The Giver not too long ago and am gonna read Bridge to Terrabithia soon.

>>8541555
he doesn't even talk about philosophy, he just write unbelievably complex personality and interesting narrative dilemmas

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>>8539999

>>8544080
low key same

I've never read a book in my life and now I don't know where to begin.

>>8544154
At least you're reading. Don't see the harm in it. I'd recommend that after you read through those start on high school level stuff AKA the /lit/ starter kit. Oh and check out the Redwall series if you haven't already.

>>8544683
But he writes them poorly and that's what I don't like. I'm a Joycefag and just want really pretty sentences.

>>8544982
Begin with Ulysses. It's where everyone here starts.

>>8538125
"Good writing" hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhaha

I didn't empathize with Winston in 1984.
The world was interesting and I get it being a big deal when it was released, but nowadays its world doesn't have the same impact.

>>8545093
The fact that the MC's situation doesn't have any impact in the current world is more unsettling than the story itself.

I'd like a Jewish girlfriend who could teach me about Jewish mysticism and read Borges with me.

I point blank refuse to read fiction written before 1900, and any writing by a female unless it's aimed towards children

I also have an aversion to Jewish writers (not even /pol/)

>>8545093
well it turns out that surveillance of a whole society creates a lot of shit to sift through so unless you're opposing the state you don't have to worry. And it also turns out that we can still enjoy large degrees of freedom in a surveillance state so opposing the state isn't all too necessary for most of us. And anyway surveillance turned out to be mostly a tool for profit instead of strictly monitoring civilians so most thought control is disparate and disjointed and more so to get people to buy creme twinkies instead of chocolate, this is obviously still less than ideal though.

>>8545217
>this is obviously still less than ideal
>opposing the state isn't all too necessary
these two statements don't square

>>8545241
By opposing the state I meant large scale violent riots or whatever the equivalent of something gravely serious. But yes doing small things is necessary

I read fanfiction, and even consider some of it legitimately well written.

>>8545198
>I also have an aversion to Jewish writers

Who doesn't?

>>8545198
>>8545318
Maybe not /pol/ but certainly reddit.com

>>8545325

Anti-Semitism is taboo among bourgeoisie circles.

>>8538446
>we must assume that our senses provide an inaccurate/untrustworthy testimony of the world
Prove that it's wrong.

>protip: you can't

>>8538820
>IJ is for garbage men who eat garbage and live in the garbage yard and root about in its large piles of garbage
Fixed it for you.

>>8539999
archive

>>8541555
You could say the same about Oscar Wilde, but I like some philosophy in my fiction, thanks very much.