What do you wish you knew before you started reading? What do

Literally just start with the greeks

>>8653477
What will I get from that?

What next?

>>8653611
kys my man

>>8653611
Greek writing and art is the baseline for the entire western canon. Their writing will act as a framework for everything you will read going forward. Reading the Greeks will help you develop an understanding of basic narrative and writing technique, as well as give you tools to contextualize abstract or complex works down the road. I have never read a piece of literary fiction without at some point being reminded of a Greek work, and then being led to compelling implications based on that inference. Furthermore it is just a ton of fun to read this stuff, get some friends together and read Plato's symposium.

>>8653699
As in grammar, logic, and rhetoric - the trivium?

And then moving onto the quadrivium as in classical/liberal arts education?

>>8653831
Figuratively yes, reading the Greeks could lay the bedrock for your future reading in the way that studying the trivium does for the quadrivium.

Learn how to adapt your mind to other people's and to new concepts. Appreciating and enjoying art is about entering someone else's thoughts and thought processes. Your task as a reader (but also as a listener and a viewer of other art forms) is to understand them and consequently to derive enjoyment from them. If you don't enjoy a work of art, it most likely isn't the artist's fault (if we're talking about some canonical work, of course - you'll find plenty of crap outside of it), it's yours.
That is my mindset atm, at least. I didn't start out with it, but whenever I came across art that I didn't understand - such as classical music, visual arts or literature - I persisted until I did. (Of course, I'm still finding new ways of understanding and looking at art.)

>I'm concerned that ... the literature will go over my head.

What do you mean by that? Like, seriously, I don't get this sentiment.

Just read the books, nigga. It's genuinely not that complicated.