Oldfag Special Snowflake Sanctuary Thread

I'm 27 but I have the emotional maturity of a 15 year old

US, 35, Hells Angels by HST

If you're into HST, it's pretty good. The book makes me want to get a motorcycle and makes me deathly afraid of riding a motorcycle at the same time.

US, 37
Rereading Always Coming Home by UKL
Checking out How the Irish Saved Civilization

Finishing up Island of the Blue Dolphins with the kid: next up: The Cricket on the Hearth.

US, 64, The Tunnel by Gass

I'm 25 and I look like I'm 13 and I have the emotional maturity of a 200 year old alien. US.

Reading JR, Gaddis.

Nocturnes is a comfy read OP, read any other Ishiguro? Nocturnes is a bit uneven. Hang in there, Cellists (last story) is by far the best one.

US, 29, reading Ulysses and Emma for graduate school.

Jane Austen is one of the greatest writers in the history of the English language.

>>8800925
I guess I will seriouspost.

Reading William James' lectures on The Varieties of Religious Experience, plus Mann's Magic Mountain and Hesse's Magister Ludi for grad school.

31, The Drowned World By JG Ballard. A meditatively written book about global warming sinking cities and causing men to revert psychologically, as the heat makes them yearn to join the sea. Some of the best literary 'sf' I have read among Ursula Le Guin and Philip K Dick, and a good prose stylist:

>This growing isolation and self-containment, exhibited by the other members of the unit and from which only the buoyant Riggs seemed immune, reminded Kerans of the slackening metabolism and biological withdrawal of all animal forms about to undergo a major metamorphosis. Sometimes he wondered what zone of transit he himself was entering, sure that his own withdrawal was symptomatic not of a dormant schizophrenia, but of a careful preparation for a radically new environment, with its own internal landscape and logic, where old categories of thought would merely be an encumbrance.

So are we all old enough in this thread to analyze how the internet & smartphones have affected our reading habits?

I am less than thrilled with my experience.
I managed to avoid a smartphone until about a year ago when my mother-in-law sent me one without asking. It definitely challenged and then overcame my self-control.
For some background on me: I was raised without TV or computers and read voraciously all my life since about 6 or so.
Now, a year after getting this phone, while I continue to acquire books, I have to carve out time to read them, and they stack up, more and more unread. I get a lot of reading done... online. Because I enjoy reading, I continue to read a lot, but so much of it is opnions, and articles and bullshit.
I know that recognizing this could be a step towards changing it, and I do plan to, but it's upsetting, since I went into the situation with my eyes open and yet still succumbed.

What is your experience, /oldlit/?

>>8801029
I can't read actual literature on a smartphone. It's just too annoying. Has to be an actual book.

>>8801029
Somehow I can type like 50 wpm on that shitty onscreen keyboard.

>>8801029
the internet has been a huge net positive. not because of ebooks (i read as much as i can in physical format...just never got used to kindles/ereaders/onscreen) but because of the accessibility of secondary material, annotations, critical/scholarly discussion, etc. that really helped with my understanding and appreciation and enjoyment of literature.

of course it takes some time away from reading because of gaming and such, but i only game/chat with people online for the social aspects which i think is important, so i don't really consider the bulk of it "time wasted."

smartphones are just a convenient way to check facebook/read some articles on 5 minute subway rides. i'm not getting much reading in anyway in those cases, and i have managed to read quite a few filler books (shitty genre fiction, webnovels, etc.) on the phone, so whatever.

i'm overall very happy with technology, but i can see how technology could be bad for some people. but i think you shouldn't blame the tech, should work on your own will and self control desu.

30, Melbourne, Australia.
Just starting Gormenghast. I enjoyed Peake's poetry so I am interested to see if he can make fantasy sing. I normally find it tedious, so it'll be interesting. Before this I read The Acid House because I am Scottish and heading back to the UK for Christmas and New Year's, then hitting Germany to hopefully see some knuckled masonry.

>>8801029
The internet is great for acquiring books and researching purchases, and I am sure it has enabled me to read more widely. But, I wonder if it would be have been more fulfilling to be a reader pre-net, actually going to bookstores and talking to people for recommendations.

As for social media I was an early adopter and then ditcher of Facebook. It is a false god which enables vanity and spreads discontent, and lies. Smartphones are potentially more insidious, a totalitarian's data-mining and gps-tracking wet dream, ever pervasive, always demanding. And they look so cumbersome. So I have a 2009 Samsung. Caveat - little social life to speak of.

what the hell are you all doing on this shithole grandpas

36

reading a history of the crusades.

Also almost done with a first draft of my third novel. Didn't write any today, because I was busy vomiting.

>>8801073
runciman?

>>8801072
Exactly what you're doing, sport --- escaping from our lives.

I'm 28 and am in university.

Suck it nerd.

>>8801074
no fucking clue what that means

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>>8800915
I'm 22.

>>8800915
Mexico
24
"Las Mémoires" by Giacomo Casanova

>>8801070
For me it's something like TVtropes, or even wikipedia: I can drop hours in what seems like minutes, just like I used to with books.
I *did* used to read the encyclopedia and dictionary for fun as a kid... I guess it's kind of similar...

Another thing that I have noticed is that somehow the ease of access is addicting... Books require more patience, I think, at least the kind of books that I like: slow buildups and descriptive language, etc. It's like there's some horrid little demon whispering "tldr" inside me sometimes...

I don't see tech as bad, or myself as not responsible, for the record. I just like to really examine my relationship to the world and act consciously.

US, 25, Recognitions

I'm still early on but I find that if I resist the urge to obsessively reread, so as to soak up every detail, that it flows very well. Gaddis had great rhythm but it's hard to keep pace and not just wallow in the craftsmanship of each sentence.

>>8800936
That book is phenomenal. I read it twice in a year.

>>8801002
>William James on religious experience

I like you anon

>>8801029
I'm only 25 but I mostly date girls in their early teens and twenties. Their phone usage is shocking. Even just the few years between us have caused this enormous rift. They're snapchatting and instagramming and tweeting and I barely even use facebook. They text me all the time too. It's infuriating. The ready availability of nudes is nice though. They send those out like it's nothing.

>>8800915
U.S., 37, just finished collected short stories of John Cheever and started "On blue's waters".

34, U.S., Brideshead Revisited

I can't believe I'm 34. The years since 30 have flown by faster than anyone younger than 30 can imagine. I need to get my career in order, get married, . . . fuck.

>>8801436
If it's any motivation, I know a 45 year old guy who told me that he felt the way you're feeling when he was 35 too, and then he didn't do it, and another ten years went by.

>>8801256
<early teens

>>8801436
I'm going to be 30 in less than two months. I know I shouldn't let it get to me, but I do. I'll see the /lit/ threads about what various great writers have accomplished before 30, and I feel inadequate. I've actually gotten some short stories published, but nothing big, and I don't have a novel out. I've failed at getting an agent and I fear dying in obscurity.

>>8801256
17 isn't 'early teens'

31, America.

Currently reading Independent People by Halldor Laxness and Conquest of the Useless by Werner Herzog. Both are excellent.

I went to Iceland this year and Independent People makes me long to return. Comfiest place on the whole planet, although I almost regret typing that because I don't want it to be ruined by tourists like me flocking there because it's the hot new meme.

Herzog's diary amazes me at every page. I can't image myself leading a film crew at age 28. Some days it seems like I can barely put air in my tires.

Meanwhile I've been making steady progress on my own novel. If I can keep at 1k a day for the next two weeks I'll have a solid first draft done by Christmas.

>>8801455
I know the feeling. Sounds like you and I are in the same boat. What else can we do but keep writing though, right?

>>8801455
Stop thinking about age as a "line" where you have to have certain accomplishments by certain points. You're abstracting too much, and it's leading you astray.

Think of your passions and your life goals as something concretely in front of you, in a present that keeps developing into the future. There's no fucking line. There's "I want to understand quantum physics, so I'm going to do the things 'in front of me' that lead me to that transformation, and in DOING those things I will also be experiencing them." Reorient your perspective of what "a life" looks like, take a step back from the intuitive mental imagery that comes up when someone says "what you've accomplished" and realise that you're intuiting it in a stereotyped way every time, in a way that necessarily has certain imperatives and priorities bound up in it.

If you keep thinking like you're thinking, you're just going to repress it, and when you hit 40, 50, 60, and beyond, have a panic attack that you're old. You're never "old." You're just you.

Do you think Kant cared that he was a nobody until his 50s? How can your linear conception of the life you want to live even begin to accommodate things like Nietzsche, who (to his own knowledge) died in obscurity? Or a thousand other similar cases. The only rational escape from this kind of thinking and its pitfalls is to focus on doing good in the constantly unfolding Present, as whatever You Are. Create the beauty you feel compelled to create, for its own sake, whether you're 30 or 70 or 90. That moment of contribution to humanity and to eternity, and the journey it took to get you there, however many years, is worth all the careerist fucking paint-by-numbers "good lives" in the world.

>>8800982
Only The Buried Giant which I enjoyed. I'll try Remains of the Day soon.

>>8800915
31 currently reading:
A guide to critical theory rec'd by an anon
Roadside Attraction
The Wretched Of The Earth
The New Jim Crow

US, 34, the Aeneid

>>8801436
>I need to get my career in order, get married

This is where I am, but because I spent most of my teens and all of my 20's in a depression and have spent the last few years beginning to unfuck my life.

Going back to school with nineteen year old girls is excruciatingly frustrating in a lot of ways.

>>8801441
Yeah, that will probably happen to me too. At least if I don't relapse first and drink myself into an early grave. . . . I'm a lifelong determinist, and lately I've taken a lot of comfort in that world view.

I was on a date a few days ago, and she brought up some stuff about what she'd tell her younger self if she could go back in time, and that got me going on a ramble of all my regrets, which then provoked in me a countervailing effort at consolation in the form of a lecture on determinism. I don't think there will be a second date.

>>8801599
I can imagine that would be tough. I did the same thing, pissed away my best years with depression, anxiety, and alcoholism, and now I'm trying to get where a well-adjusted 22 year old should be. It sucks.

>>8800969
Because it's christmas therefore dickens time?

>>8801441
>>8801436

The older you get, the faster time goes by, particularly once you cross the age 30 mark.

Bank on this.

>>8800985
Are you the guy who said the more he reads austen the more he's convinced she was a better writer than Joyce? That was a good post that requires expansion

US 29
Valis Philip K Dick

I'm 25 but I'm in school so I guess I don't qualify. Reading Don Quixote.

>>8800915
US, 27, My Struggle Book One

I'm loving it so far. It's very cynical and self deprecating so if that's your thing I would check it out.

NL, 28, rereading Oblomov. I've read it about six years ago and now that's it cosy wintertime it seems like a good time to revisit.

That dream chapter is probably most comfy thing I have ever read.

>>8800936
HST was way better before he became a living meme desu.

26, us, villa triste by Modiano

Not his best so far but I'll read anything Modiano

And desu idk why to worry about the nagging feeling of not being accomplished.

>>8802017
I've been looking for a cosy wintertime book and you're the third anon to mention Oblomov in the space of a few days. What's stopping me to try it is that I hear it's a tragedy and I'm just not in the mood for that. I know I'm being a shallow pussy (therefore I fail even as a pussy) but is there any good, "serious", ""literary"" book that's comfy and snug end to end and doesn't kick you in the feels just as you were letting your guard down? I have a feeling this precludes any Russian authors.

>>8800915
Oh, and I'm 36, live in a second-and-a-half-world European country and am currently reading the Bible. I don't plan to read it cover to cover though, I've selected about half of the books (not sure if it's half in terms of number of pages). Currently almost done with the Psalms which, though repetitive, like much of the rest, can get pretty comfy.

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>>8801085

Steven Runciman wrote a classic history of the crusades.

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>>8801477
Dubs of Certitude, checked. Well said anon.

>>8800915
>be me
>Texasfag
>34 years, army vet, no college

Reading: Us & Them by David Berreby, an examination of the tribal nature of man. Non-fiction by a layman in the field. Seeing how it goes.

Also reading Livy, because his version of early Roman history is basically an action movie and the themes and archetypes of the eternal city are still powerful today.

Knut Hamsun's Hunger was great. Growth of the Soil I could not finish. Dostoyevsky's Idiot was p cozy. I've not read Oblomov but that sounds like it could go on the list.


>>8801599
>>8801706
My fellow 30-something anons. I believe in you. Go get what you want. (For myself, I know I don't want to be married til about 50. Got close once. Need to publish a novel first.)

Romania, 26, currently Vanity Fair by Thackeray, it's great. Taking a break from Plato, 900 pages in, just before the Republic.

Liking both of them, but I have very interesting books on the backlog so I'm anxious to get to them. Also anxious to secure a PhD, cause I'm slowly breaking down, feeling like wasting life not doing what I'm supposed to.

I'm 34 and from Northern Ireland. Currently reading The Melancholy of Resistance by László Krasznahorkai.

I haven't been on /lit in a year or so, am back to see if any good book recommendations are floating around. Think I'll check out Canonball by Joseph McElroy.

As for real books vs ebooks, I prefer real books but ebooks are v handy. I never fall asleep as fast as my wife so usually read on my phone for half an hour each night. Handy not having to turn the light on. Thats the only time i get a chance to read, really

>>8800915
>NO TEENAGERS OR CURRENT UNIVERSITY STUDENTS ALLOWED
This is a stab in my heart. I am 26 and still study. I'm such a loser.
But soon! SOON! Soon my time will come... surely.

>>8802185
What are you studying?

25 here.

I've been thinking of resigning from my job and spending a couple of months at home to really focus on finishing a novel I've been working on. I have to face the fact that I'm not going to be able to write anything worthwhile working nine hours a day at a job that uses up my mental energy. Parents are encouraging me but they live in a small town and I'm afraid that I'll end up like Ignatius or that I'll regret it when the time comes to find a new job and I can only find call centrerwork or something.

Any advice?

Been working full-time since I graduated three years ago.

>>8802193
What are you working? Would it be tough finding another job in the same field? If you left, would you leave under good graces with the management? So that you could get your job back if you so wanted?

It's pretty admirable to follow your passion either way, I am actually struggling to do the same.

>>8801083
MA or PhD?

>>8802204
It's data work at a start-up tech company in NY. On paper I can make it seem like an intense job (I joined when the business just started out and it's pretty big now). But really the work is just monotonous and often cause me to really hate myself for wasting so much time during a period of life when a lot of people really focus their time and attention on achieving something they want to achieve or climbing a ladder they want to climb. But I come from a blue collar family and I have no real marketable skills, which means after a couple of months at home I will either have to do shit-tier temp or minimum wage work, apply to return to college, or move back to the city and find another probably less well-paying job here.

>>8802268
Whatever you end up doing, I think finishing that novel is really important, especially if you really feel you need to do it and it's what you should do. Living on a little less I think is more acceptable (I imagine you'd agree with this) than living a life that not fulfilling or where you feel that you are missing your calling.

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Estonia 28
The Twelve Chairs Ilf and Petrov it is pretty funny and light read, would recommend . .

>>8801029

I know that feel, now i mostly read on my lunch breaks and when Im out somewhere. .

Last couple of weeks I started reading at home again also. Key is making yourself comfy and realising this is so much better than looking random crap on internet. . also dont waste time reading the book you dont like

>>8802288
Thanks for the reply. I agree about fulfillment, it's just I know that if I had a father or if I talked to my boss or some practical-minded guy about this he'd suggest either writing in my free time or working until I have money for a house / apartment and so on. My mom is encouraging me to resign and move back home for January at least (she and he partner are both retired and travelling to Europe for a month). But I guess I'm psychologically damaged to an extent in the sense that my default perspective is that I'm destined to not succeed, or that I somehow belong at the bottom of the barrel. It's certainly not healthy. So many people I've met in the past few year have met me and wondered aloud why I wasn't someplace else doing something or pursuing something I'd enjoy. But the truth is I have this persistent fear that for me there is a long way to fall. My mom unemployed for a long time and only ended up finding jobs she hated, and after I myself was NEET after graduating for a couple of months the idea of willingly returning to that state seems absurd to me at times. But then again I feel like I'm in a Catch-22 wherein I'll hate myself if I stay and hate myself if I leave and end up being rejected from everything I apply for despite those jobs paying less and so on. I mean I realize it takes confident, even arrogance and narcissism to assert what you want in life and simply pursue it despite the impracticality of doing so, but I also acknowledge that plenty of people have similar aspirations as mine and that they perhaps pursue their ambitions in a more logical, mature and responsible way, rather than retreating to mommy's spare room and demanding success (relatively) immediately while others either socialize their way into being somebody worth publishing or work hard for years outside of their full-time job in order to write a novel etc. I've done a lot of research and found that most authors I respect (playwrights, novelists etc) did not work full-time while writing their debut work or any subsequent works. Some did, but most either NEETed it for a while, worked part-time or wrote while attending an MFA course. And those who did work full-time often did so in a capacity which allowed their literary talents to flourish (i.e. academia, literary editor etc). It's a tough decision and one I've hesitated making for so long that I literally have until the end of today, or tomorrow at the latest to make (if I'm to have a month to myself in January while my folks are away). Thinking practically there is little to no money in literature, and it very well take me much longer than half a year or so to complete something I'm proud of, and then to wait for a reply from various agents and publishers. Those facts encourage me to simply keep working full-time and write while looking for a job with perhaps fewer hours in this city.

I'm 24 and I am the opposite of well read.

See you in a year when I've read two more books and I can shit up this thread.

>>8802324
Not the guy you're replying to, but it's at least clear to you that you're doing this thing.

I am the most starry-eyed idealist ever, but you do need to think of the practicalities like you said. There is very little room for material success in literature anymore unless you fall into the major categories of what sells, like vampire YA schlock, minority confessionals, cook books, or war memoirs. If you're outside that small group, you basically want to either be a gimmicky pomo New York art scene nepotist with friends in high places, or literally don't quit your dayjob.

I don't understand why you can't do like you say, look for a better job that isn't eating up your entire life, and work on the book in your free time. I know a guy who works a low-key nine-to-five and he's researching and writing his own books at a decent pace on the side. Of course, you'd have to surrender career mobility, and take similar risks. But why does it have to be all or nothing?

Camille Paglia finished her magnum opus in like 1968 and it wasn't published until 1990 while she hounded publishers. I don't know what the fuck her dayjob was in that time, but you have to be prepared for bullshit. Doesn't mean you have to work 10 hour days and die inside either though.

>>8802288
>>8802324
But my ambition, and my instincts (which may just be my childish subconscious REEEing) tell me that I am simply wasting what potential I have by sitting for nine hours a day at a desk watching time go by slowly as I stare at excel sheets and watch my co-workers read clickbait articles all day. My mom recently told me that I should be more of a risk taker, and that I'm young enough to start over if I need to. I agree to an extent but I've also seen the downside of being a risk-taker and it is often the case, probably most often, that those who succeed in a given industry do so after spending years practically pursuing some goal related to it in a logical fashion, wherein they gained contacts, established a name for themselves, while also earning a wage that did not only benefit them by allowing them to make rent. But with art being an essentially private occupation, subjectively evaluated, produced and sold in a marketplace populated by other works of art which demand a great deal from the consumer (especially with books) often without supplying much in return, then there is only so much you can do outside of actually writing a book. But then in order to write a book you simply need to have the time, energy and focus to make it the primary (or secondary only to children if you have them) concern in your life, because otherwise it'll never be more than some hobby you do on the side, and the lack of dedication will inevitably be betrayed by the work itself, because it will only ever be invested with the dregs of your talent. Maybe it would be healthy for me to simply take a risk for the sake of it, in other words to prove that I have not been rendered completely meek and tame and servile by my first full-time job out of college, which I took because I was desperate. There will always be people who insist that I don't earn enough money or work in an interesting enough job to be considered a mature individual worthy of respect and fellow-feeling, but am I really giving in to these people by continuing to labor miserably and if I am would it make more sense to simply quit and prove my resolve or to suffer as long as it takes to be hired elsewhere?

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We should have more oldfag threads.

They're pretty comfy.

>>8801092
best post to be honest

>>8801447
>>8801462
Shit, I meant late teens.

>>8802350
Camille Paglia earned a PhD related to the subject of her book then taught classes at Bennington College related to her book.

It's what I mean really. I believe I am condemning myself to the status of rare outlier if I ever do make it. While Camille and others have practically worked towards their goal. It would be unlikely that she would have researchedand written that book of hers if she had spent the time working instead as an accountant.

Examples:

1. Phillip Meyer (American Rust, The Son)
>graduated aged 25
>worked as a trader until 28
>lived with parents from 28 to around 31
>started studying to become an EMT
>attended MFA and made it

2. Faulkner
>worked in the office of postal office from 25 to 27
>resigned and lived as a NEET in New Orleans and Paris
>published Soldiers Pay at 28 / 29

3. Douglas Adams
>graduated and worked with Monty Python in London
>ran out of work
>moved home to live with mommy aged 24
>stayed there six months and wrote Hitchhiker's Guide...

4. Kerouac
>graduated and worked as a reporter
>quit and bummed around the US working numerous brief jobs
>moved home with mommy at 25 and wrote Town and The City
>accepted at 26 and published at 28 / 29

5. Knausgaard
>graduated at 21
>worked occasionally at at a psychiatric hospital, newspaper and on an oil rig
>avoided military duty and bummed around Bergen
>returned to college for art history at around 25 / 26
>NEET for years
>published debut at 30

6. John Kennedy Toole
>graduated with PhD at 24
>taught essentially part-time as a military conscript in Puerto Rico
>worked 10 hours a week in New Orleans from age 25 while writing Confederacy...

7. Mishima
>graduated at 21
>worked for the Economic Ministry in Japan
>made up a story about almost falling asleep on the train track
>told his parents he couldn't work and write
>father allowed him to quit
>published at 24

8. Tennessee Williams
>graduated at 21
>worked at his father's factory until 24
>quit after becoming exhausted and depressed
>attended writing school at 25
>worked jobs across the US (chicken farmer, cinema attendant, hospital worker)
>published earliest play by 27, recognized by around 31 years old

9. John Steinbeck
>moved to New York at around 21 to become a writer
>fails
>moves to California with wife at around 23
>works odd jobs around Lake Tahoe
>ran out of money
>wife and father persuaded him to keep writing
>lived as a NEET at age 26 /27 in his father's spare home in Monterrey
>first published aged 27

10. Kafka
>graduated around 21
>worked at two different office jobs while trying to write
>become so disheartened by full-time work that he negotiated a reduced working day
>worked from 8am to 1pm
>first published aged 28 / 29

I could go on and on due to the amount of research I've done and that amount of information I've memorized, if only to gain a helpful and reassuring insight into how other writers (and other artists) made it an what lifestyle was necessary in order for them to do so.

>>8802384
It's too late, the FBI are already tracking you.

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Fuck you guys, I was successfully pretending to be 20 when I was 15, I should be allowed to pretend I'm 25 now that I'm 20.

>>8802188
Studied Philosophy, then started CS with Engineering with very slow, slow progress, since I hated it. I study Law now. I spent 8 years at university and have no higher degree than a BA, BSc. Feels awful. Couldn't get a job either.

>>8801103
That's a funny book, I like you anon

>>8802324
>>8802351
>>8802403

Ok, I am the guy who initially started asking questions, I'm back.

From what I read you have a lot of things mixed up into this, it's not only a thing about pursuing a passion, but various identity problems and self-esteem/image troubles. I kind of agree with you when you are saying that you should quit, just so you can prove yourself that you are able to break your lifestyle and prove something to yourself, that in itself I think is very valuable and helpful.

Because from what you are saying, you aren't really getting much value from what you are doing either way (except getting better payed?). So quitting at this point is kind of low risk from that perspective. Having supportive parents is always a great plus in these situations too.

On the other hand, you are leaping into something that is very risky, tackling a very difficult domain (literature) in its most complex form (novel). So yes, you are right that you need to pursue a lifestyle adequate for your interests in order to succeed in them, but I would also argue, that you also need to give yourself room to grow...maybe start smaller? start trying to get short stories published? articles? that sort of thing? I would assume something like that would also provide some sort of validation and feel like a breath of fresh air, in a life of monotonous meaninglessness.

>>8801198
hm, maybe attach light to book?

>>8802615
Hello and thank you for your reply.

In terms of starting small, I have already written a novel (when I was 21) which was accepted for publication but I withdrew it when they finally replied to me (three months after the usual reply period) because in that time I had started something else and was really embarrassed by the novel they had accepted. I have also been shortlisted for two of the three short story competitions I've applied for (applying for another one in January). So I have at least some basis for being confident in my ability, but again I read about people like Phillip Meyer and how he thought he was hot shit at 28 and quit his job to finish off and then submit a novel, only to have that and another rejected before he finally was published at 34.

I suppose my fundamental fault is that I see no place for myself in life, and that I judge others to be in possession of something I simply lack, namely the capacity and sustained desire to assert their internal will on the external world and the essential drives necessary to believe that they are as good as others, if not superior in their literary talent, and to have this confidence and assertiveness reflected in their written work. Objectively speaking, thinking the way I am is simply pointless and only encourages apathy and resignation. But I am so unfamiliar with any different ways of thinking that I may well end up embarrassing myself and others having entirely overestimated my ability to thrive in an arena (success, realized ambition) in which others have gladly spent their entire lives. For example, I wrote a second novel which I sent to the publisher who accepted my first one, and then declined. I then sent it elsewhere for it to be rejected. I then contacted a relatively small press who have grown rapidly in recent years and have some great names on their books, and because they were opening a new office in my region the person in charge asked me to send them my work. But I was so unprepared for acceptance at that point I ended up sending not only my work (which I agree was too boring and perhaps too short to be published, and which I'd written after working nine hour days and commuting an hour to get home) I also sent a document of "additional notes" which was around 7,000 words long and was written in a style that was so familiar that in retrospect it makes me cringe physically and feel glad that I at least submitted it that time under a pseudonym. Someone threw me a bone and I overreacted and acted like a rabid dog until they were chased away.

>>8802403

Faulkner is a good example, as just because he got published, nobody knew who he was until he was in his 40s, and he didn't start making any real money until he was in his 50s.

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>>8800915
I'm 38 and this thread is a bit sad, my fellow dinosaurs. Lots of whining and failure. Stop caring so much and post comfy Christmas reads for such semi-senile seniors as us.

>>8803259
I honestly wouldn't mind earning very little and allowing my mental illnesss(es) to claim whatever portion of my consciousness they seem to desire as long as I had a published book under my belt which I could pick up and hold and send to my mother each and every Christmas. Being a mute weirdo with nothing to show for it is hellish.

>>8803259
Also, Faulkner earned enough money with only his first novel to buy the large colonial home which has since become indelibly associated with his legacy.

>>8803279
Plenty of shitty periodicals (and also good periodicals) accept flash fiction you know. Takes no time to write either, easy to expand on.

>>8803279

Never fall into the trap of sitting around and waiting for motivation to come to you. People always say shit like, "Well...if i was getting paid to do it, I'd do it a lot more, and I'd be way better at it!" For one, this isn't true, for another, if you weren't motivated, you would never get to the point of being published and making money anyway.

Motivation is it's own motivation. It doesn't happen out of nowhere, you have to make it happen. You basically have to force yourself to do something, then when you start seeing results, it will motivate you more, and next thing you know it will become a way of life, and THEN long after this process has started, you'll start seeing real results like getting published, making money, banging dumb 18 year olds with ddd cups, etc...

You can't focus on the goal though, you need to just focus on the shit you can do now to one n day make that goal happen.

>>8803286
Well....that's a whole nother story, he actually didn't buy the house outright, and he had a huge mortgage, and he spend the next decades trying to keep up with the payments and supporting his booze habit, and it wasn't until he won the nobel prize that he actually got the cheddar to pay everything off.

>>8802865
Still here.

I think what you are describing in a good thing, because it stems from a perfectionist attitude, a high standard to which you aspire. You shouldn't abandon or fight against this, since without it you are certainly locked out of producing anything of true quality. But I think this can also be crippling because of the large gap you see between your current condition and what you aspire to be...can be discouraging and numbing. So yeah, I guess it must feel a bit like crawling, when you have to push yourself through rationalizing what you have to do alone, and are not able to rely on some initial drive (though I'm sure this drive manifests in time, as you get closer to where you want to get). But it's important that you do so, even if it's in small steps.

Full disclosure, I might be projecting here, currently dealing with what I've described, so take what I'm saying with a grain of salt.

>>8803343
>this can also be crippling because of the large gap you see between your current condition and what you aspire to be.

I agree, and to be honest I feel like I've wasted this past year already since if I had simply pushed out trash there would at least be the chance I may have been published at which point whatever benefits would be praised and whatever faults in my work could be dismissed as evidence of my youth. But as I get older I feel this intense pressure to write a perfect book that is mature and sort of accomplished without a run-up of sorts comprised of lesser books which at least established my identity as a kinderblumen or whatever the Germanic phrase happens to be.

What is your situation, by the way?

>>8803343

Well, for one, you should never focus on the end goal completely, as for one if you do things right, more than likely your end goal will change.

Kind of like how all boys want to be firemen, then we they get that age, most figure out, "Oh wait....that's a real shitty overworked, dangerous job." If you do things right, the childish ideas in your head now will probably change.

Other than that, it is small steps. I've known tons of people who, figuratively, will stand on this empty piece of land, looking at it all day and yell, "WHY ISN'T MY HOUSE BUILT YET! This is just empty land, This is bullshit!"

Well....did you dig a hole? Did you build a foundation? That'd be a good place to start.

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27, US, reading The Secret History of Lord Musashi and Arrowroot by Tanizaki. Trying to finish reading Tanizaki's oeuvre in English.

I'm still in university part-time for graduate studies, but I also have a full time job, am married, own a house and will have a kid next year.

>>8803416

Everybody wants nice things, very few are willing to do the work it takes to get them.

Building a house is actually a really hard, dirty, shitty job that we make the misfits and recovering addicts in our society do for a reason.

Most people's reaction to this is something like, "Well...can't I just skip all the hard stuff, and go right to having a nice house?" and this is exactly why they don't have a nice house. Plus, the rare few who win the lottery and do get the nice shit, always know deep down that they didn't earn it, and become miserable pricks.

>>8800915
Brb making thread for 30+ year olds since we are obviously so much more mature than you <30 kiddos

Seriously neck yourself OP, do you really see old people reading literature more than young people? Do you never talk to someone older than you and think "Christ what an idiot"?

>>8803442
not OP but

>do you really see old people reading literature more than young people?
By a very large margin.

>Do you never talk to someone older than you and think "Christ what an idiot"?
Yes, but only with people who don't read.

>>8803442

As you get older, you start to notice just how retarded you were when you were younger, and just how dumb everyone around you was too.

There's that whole, "Invincibility of youth," thing that kind of has to wear off before anybody becomes interesting. They tend to have that, I'm right about everything, even though I know deep down I barely understand what I"m talking about most of the time, and I can do everything, even though I don't do much of anything but I still could do anything if i wanted to, sort of bullshit that has to wear off before someone becomes, "mature," and in fact, interesting.

>>8801029
I only got one last year, but it seems to have only had a positive effect for me. I have an airtight bag thing that you can put your phone in and use in the tub, so I take longer baths now, during which I read mostly the whole time.

Would any of you date with a girl that is in her late teens like 17-18? I'm talking with a girl but I feel way too old for her.

>>8803487
100%

The age is less important than her being attractive though, like that's just pointless.

25, US, Infinite Meme. Almost done with it finally, took a lot longer than it should have but I had a difficult time getting into it for a while/was working on my most recent novel. Taking a few month break from writing while I edit and letting some stuff brew.

How is the Winter going for all of my fellow Northern Hemisphere seasonal depression fags?

>>8803449
>>do you really see old people reading literature more than young people?
>By a very large margin.

based on what?

>Yes, but only with people who don't read.
Again, how do you know this?


>>8803464
Your first point was exactly what I was saying. OP is here deciding that 25 is obviously the age of maturity. (maybe he is around that age?)

The second one is very presumptuous and not at all universal. Being a certain age is not required for someone to be interesting.

>>8803554
It's not really a "maybe". OP said he's 28.

>>8803487
Hell no. Maybe i'd fuck one, if she wasn't too annoying, but no way in hell I'd date a girl that young.

There's just nothing we'd have in common. if you did have something in common with them, then you got some serious issues.

>>8803559
It was a rhetorical question.

>>8803554

Well...maturity isn't a guaranteed thing, I know people in their 70s who never matured.

Usually doesn't happen until after 30. It's kind of just when somebody starts becoming their own person, rather than a babbling repeating idiot.

>>8803404
Are you still around?

I'm trying to get a PhD in AI. Did a MRes two years ago, but couldn't connect it. The entire fight to catch a financed position in a good research group feels extremely random in a very competitive environment so it kind of puts me off. I'm slowly getting back into it though, so, with some determination, I hope to get something going for next autumn.

In the meantime I'm working in IT, make decent money, but keep feeling I'm moving in the completely wrong direction in life (compared to the direction I feel I should be heading). There is also a lot of Catholic Guilt mixed into all this too.

>>8803262
Have you read the Star Diaries?

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USA, 25, Complete works of Plato. Currently Republic Book 3.

I was a philosophy major and I only read about 4 dialogues by Plato so I decided to go back and read about half of them. Glad I did it. After this will be Aristotle

>>8801029
>MFW Old enough to understand why old people love
Kindles.

I'd have been one of these people claiming nothing beats print on paper and then I found out. Should have realised really.

Its because when you start getting longsighted you can adjust the size of the text and you can hold it at the right distance because its light.

>>8803554
Eliot is in fact the one who "decides" writerly maturity arrives after the age of 25.

I'm 26 and in the USA, I'm reading a book called Scarcity that's essentially a couple of psychological researches proposing that there are different types of scarcity that reliably produce the same effects, that is a "tax" on one's cognitive bandwith and a decrease in performance on fluid intelligence tests due to various reasons (whether it is fiscal scarcity, absence of social contacts, lack of time, etc. all produce the same effects).

>>8802297
Based hobgoblin advice.

>>8803554
>Being a certain age is not required for someone to be interesting.
I can't think of a single 18-19 year old I've met that I've ever been able to tolerate.

>>8804395
>I was a philosophy major
What happened?

>>8804331
>Star Diaries
No. Should I? Are they nearly as good a the Cyberiad?

NZ, 26, Herzog by Bellow and Ham On Rye by Bukowski.

>>8801993
Yeah, that was me.

I really need to read more Austen. "Persuasion" and "Northanger Abbey" are both supposed to be great works of hers. I want to check them out.

Yea well oldfag here - 67 - northwoods USA.

Here is a suggested line to follow:

Knut Hamsun
Sherwood Anderson
John Fante
Charles Bukowski

On a personal note I lived in east Hollywood in the 1960's and worked at a nearby Shakeys pizza parlor. I had a neighbor who would come into Shakeys in the afternoons and I would poor him pitchers of beer. I knew him as Hank. It was Charles Bukowski.

>>8806549
>I knew him as Hank. It was Charles Bukowski.

Cringe

>>8806552
faggot

>>8806549
How can you even stand the people on this site?

>>8800915
>>8800915
US, 27

Pere Goriot by Balzac
Bottchan by Souseki
The Lankavatara Sutra

>>8801029
Smartphones allow you to read while commuting which more than doubled my reading time. When I have a physical book I just power off the phone. Sometimes not having friends is a perk.

>>8801599
Dude I'm in the same situation
Bang as many as you can like I do, they love 30's dick

>>8800915
Norway
25
Reading Madame Bovary, it's good.
Still in university since I'm refusing to let go and move on, i.e. grow up.

>>8806605

Do you have any idea how boring life is in the woods for a big city boy? What we do to have a woman.

>>8806552

Just crawl away in silence.

>>8801706
Remember though, those "well adjusted" 22 year olds are infinitely more likely to fuck themselves over come mid-life crisis time. People like you have existential crises often enough that it's more or less like "oh, here we are again"

If you can unfuck yourself long enough to prove it on a job application, there are still lots of good things ahead of you and in someways far less bad than the people who have never had to get used to depression sucking away years of their lives

>>8806645
Fuck cities. I wish a rain would come and wash all the filth from these streets. Degeneracy efahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaewf

>>8801029
I was born in 85 and I do not see a difference with the young shitheads.

the obvious change is the mobile internet. Today children revolve around this and I glad to avoid having mobile internet at school, where mockery can reach a new level.
The good news is that shaming on the internet does not last, even though the consequences are deeper. Of course, the people being shamed will shame other people too, so there will be no end to thi.s


otherwise, teens today dwell even more about american entertainment and they love to try to speak english.

they also want to feel deep, but the social media makes them believe that they are deep for liking/disliking such or such idea/activity because somebody else on FB agrees on this. It is really stupid but little communities makes people think they are right.

Last point is that older people think that ''having wikipedia in your hand'' will change the world. THis is deluded ''liberalism is to educated people, not being hedonistic'' liberal tier.

The whores 2.0 can earn a bit of money by leading men to provide for them, just by showing their boobs.
The female teens have also access to a wider herd of males and males love to entertain girls online, so this is nice for girls.

I like also that men now go to the gym, only to please girls. men take pictures of them naked in bathroom, just like girls, but they do not broadcast this.
Men get now that their place is to please women.

>>8806549
Seriously? Any memories?

>>8803506
Mind sharing your novel idea? I'd like to share about the one I'm working on but idk if anyone would want to read and probably no way it would ever be published because its not YA or genre..

>>8806467
It's been 2 years so I've done so, but I remember loving them.

>>8806762
Are those the ones about the space cadet Pirx? Those were fun. I still have to read his more serious work too, starting with Solaris.

>>8806812
Ijon Tichy, I didn't like Solaris myself.

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>>8806619
>living through pleasing girls
good beta

>>8806696
Wikipedia uber alles has been a disaster.
If you spoke to someone at a party in the 80s who didn't really know what they were talking about, it was because they'd only skim-read whatever book you were discussing or read about it in the Paris Review or somewhere fairly legit.

This is light years ahead of the Wikipedian 'know everything but really know nothing' millennial.

As you can see here, the great minds and the great books are hollowed out stereotypes and shells. People come back to things like Adam Smith or Ulysses on their fifth or sixth reading and find something interesting to pick at, that just doesn't happen now. Everything is a sprint followed by a consumer review that assumes anyone cares about the writer's opinions.

>>8806703
Memories of Bukowski? Nothing of interest. It was usually him and another guy that I didn't know and they sat at a table in the window. I only had small talk with him about the neighborhood. But:

An encounter with the Manson family in Griffith Park before they were identified.

The whole freak show in Laurel Canyon.

Read The Day of the Locust for the inside story.

>>8806549
rofl faggot kys

26, Canada, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Thinking about going back to school to learn a trade, uni did nothing but lower my self-esteem and leave me hating anything academia.


Or I could always move across the country with my brother. I'm not sure what to do

>>8808306
Closet anger

>>8806710
It's not going to be particularly popular here on /lit/, but it's an exploration if the concept of female suffering, which tends to get painted as more emotional hysterics that legitimate artistic struggle and striving. Plot wise it's mostly told through the relationship of the narrator and her once-college professor, once-lover, that has moved on to younger, better prospects while she struggles with the concepts of finding meaning in the modern world. Existentialism and Kirkregaard and etc.

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>>8800915
27.

Reading "Wake Up: A Life of the Buddha" By Kerouac. It's actually well researched and written.

>>8801436
34, married, kids that arent too young. Its all going well. No existential crisis either.

>>8809039
Oh and Laurus

I'm 30 and reading Bolaños short stories.
He makes me want to go to Chilel and fuck Chilean sluts.

>>8809051
Its never as easy as it seems in latin novels

>>8800974
I don't believe you

27
The Bible, every once in a great while anyway, currently up to Isiah
Moby Dick, so incredibly good but I want to take my time with it
Plus by McElroy. Right now admire it more than I enjoy it. This is the one I'm currently reading on my phone, which it seems well suited to as I don't think I could take long sessions with it
Titus Groan. An absolute delight, like a fine pastry
I Am a Strange Loop. Love the ideas but Hofstadter's writing is so cringe inducing I have a hard time reading it
Pope's Illiad, my alternative phone book. Great stuff
Before the Deluge, would be my main book except that I found myself picking up the next three
A Collection of Essays by George Orwell. Fabulous stuff
Dear Life by Alice Munro. Holy shit. I've only read the first story so far but it was literally jaw dropingly good. After I finished it I just sat there for minutes processing how good this woman is.
The Miracle of Mindfulness. My mom got me this. Is good.

>>8801058
It takes a bit to start but boy does it sing.

>>8801042
this. some people really need to get a grip and learn how to use shit responsibly.

i recommend avoid 'passive' use of phones and the internet. mindlessly scrolling through social media and refreshing is a waste of time. discussion and information-seeking and even more recreational shit is great.

bunp

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We Eat Our Own by Kea Wilson pic related

A novel about making an Italian horror movie in the Amazon rain forest circa 1970s.

A number of very vividly drawn, unique characters. Good dramatic scenes, and good writing. The author is quite talented. The book has a bit of a horror vibe throughout, without quite going there in terms of actually being a horror novel. The narrative is a wee bit disappointing in its final payoff, but the book as a whole was enjoyable and satisfying. I really wasn't expecting to like it, but was pleasantly surprised. B+

>>8808979
I see. Actually the main character of my story is a girl. But it's not really about female suffering. It's more about her and her brother and father. Well actually it's about a lot of things. I think I'm being too ambitious.

I might as well make a request. Can anyone recommend any good books on the study/examination of cults and/or cult leaders? I need to do more research on this kind of thing for this story.

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Sweden, 26, Reading 'Classical Literary Criticism', as part of my attempt to start with the Greeks

28 Netherlands
Konrad Bayer Collected Works
it's even worse for me because I'm [spoilers]female[/spoilers] and I feel like I'm already in my 40s when I browse this board

>>8802001
how is it? my friend swears by it

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>>8811124
Start with the classic: "When prophecy fails" by Leon Festinger. Its about a UFO cult in Chicago who predict the end of the world, and then (spoiler) the world doesn't end.

Utterly fascinating, relatively short, not actually a textbook or the dry academic tome it looks like it might be.

>>8811707
One of the characters, the brother, becomes a kind of cult leader. He's a fighter pilot with a prodigious track record in missions so he becomes like a national hero and he gets a following of a lot of current and former soldiers who are disgruntled, traumatized etc. The brother has a disturbed and nihilistic kind of personality and his own war trauma has essentially turned him into a sociopath.

What are the best books about Manson? I'm particularly interested in the ins and outs of like how Manson met and got those people to follow him.

>>8811707
Oh and thanks for the rec II'll check it out.

>>8811573
Do you already have kids then?

And how did you get ahold of Konrad Bayer? From the library/ebook or did you manage to buy a copy?

Nigeria, 37, Steppenwolf

>>8811124

My girlfriend grew up in a cult, family is still fully indoctrinated.

Don't explore the subject matter if you're emotionally weak or shaky is all I'm gonna say

>>8813764

Based

What do you work as? Hows living in Nigeria?

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>>8811573
spread your legs in a gym, nothing more rejuvenating than having 22 yo fit men trying to please you

whats up homies

25, US

I'm reading The Wapshot Chronicle by Cheever and can't figure out why he isn't among the most respected American authors of all time. I'd take him over Hemingway or Faulkner any day.

>>8801993
>she was a better writer than Joyce

Heh. Says more about that particular poster than it says about Joyce. Sad.

>>8807782
why do you care about some random persons level of understanding?

>>8802180
If you can find it I'd read Ancient History before Canonball.

>>8814894
Thanks!

>>8811573
>Konrad Bayer
Do you have that in pdf/epub by any chance? Been looking for it forever.

>>8812450
>>8815389
I was very lucky to find it in a local bookstore for only 13 euros.

If you guys really want I can take pictures of it and upload them and somebody that knows how to can make a pdf/epub from them

25 sydney and i am reading wild sheep chase