Archived threads in /lit/ - Literature - 214. page
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Is literature the artform with the deepest reach?
As a photographer myself i enjoy a lot the act of creating images, but i reckon the reach of photography is kinda superficial. I dont know anyone who has felt his life changed because of a photo, but that happens often with books.
Music can be pretty thrilling as an abstract sensory experience, but how deep it goes into actually shaping someones life? Not taking lyrics or subcultures into consideration, but music alone and itself.
Well done sculpture can be pretty moving, but thats it.
What do you think, is literature the most packed and dense and actually mind rearranging art form?
>>8200523
>is literature the most packed and dense and actually mind rearranging art form?
literature is inherently "mind rearranging" because its form and content are made up of language, which is what constructs the human mind, more or less. so literature is the most direct/accessible artform because its project is essentially to control the reader's thoughts as directly as possible.
that doesn't mean that photography or music or architecture can't be moving, but literature, and more specifically poetry, is probably the most direct artform.
Yes and photoghraphy is the shallowest "art"
>>8200523
>What do you think, is literature the most packed and dense and actually mind rearranging art form?
so far, yes. cinema could have been, but literature had a really long head start so, yeah.
>which is what constructs the human mind
i don't think that's true
So what would you consider the essential classic literature? I was thinking about getting an anthology of english literature so I can have access to a wide selection of greats and not spend a ton of money on a bunch of people's individual works. Would you say that it's really important to understand the classics, and that the classics necessarily have anything more or less to offer than our modern day literature?
>>8200385
Unless your head is in the sand you can guess what the essential classic literature. It is what has come down from hundreds, sometimes thousands (as in Homer, Plato) of years of history, the canon.
>>8200407
As to your other questions I would argue that classics are, on the whole, more worthy than modern day literature. The fact that they have survived, by being chosen to be painstakingly copied from crumbling papyrus and codices by scholars, and enduring still in our minds, centuries later, suggests that many of the old classics contain eternal truths. In this manner, they are more worthy.
>>8200407
Well, you know, I made this thread asking the essential literature is.
Are there any books as moving as “Stoner” that are actually about stoners? Something that shows a character get ruined by smoking too much weed/becoming a pothead. Something about the aimless mediocrity of a weed addict? Or even someone who uses it medically but has side effects and questions their usage? Apart from Infinite Jest I haven’t heard of or read anything that deals with marijuana addiction as something tragic rather than inherently hilarious. I’m having a hard time thinking of many realistic depictions of weed addiction in any medium. I’d love something like the Benjy section of The Sound and the Fury but, you know, portraying the viewpoint of someone retarded from weed rather than just plain retarded.
I thought Infinite Jest was pretty realistic and balanced , even though you had stuff like people drooling ridiculous amounts during withdrawal it wasn’t like he suggested pot was bad for everybody all the time. Just that certain people can’t handle certain drugs and it’s really difficult to figure out why that is.
I often wonder how much of the deleterious impact weed has on one’s functioning is due to the drug itself versus anxiety and guilt about using it. I wonder if, say, DFW would still be alive and maybe even writing if he had changed his attitude from “weed=dangrous drug” to “self medicating with weed isn’t great for my writing but at least I’m alive.”
I’ve noticed that the people i know who have the biggest problems with smoking weed all come from very socially conservative families who basically threatened to disown them for their use. Meanwhile, even if addicted, the hippe-types I know from pothead families who either think it’s a panacea or at least something which shouldn’t be a source of shame all seem to be fine. Their lives might be mediocre and not going anywhere but they’re happy to smoke and play endless hours of COD.
I don’t think this necessarily has to do with intelligence; I think . I used to be a militant teetotaler as a teen so I guess I’ve always felt some residual guilt over “selling out” by using, and I think the sense of having crossed a Rubicon by smoking at all encouraged me to resign myself to addiction. Not to mention my dad calling me a drug addict the first time he found out I was using, even thouhg it wasn’t out of a control at the time.
Anyway, I think the internal conflict of “am I a loser because of weed or just because I’m a defective human being” is an interesting one. Pic very much related.
>>8200371
your diary desu
Chronic City by Johnathan Lethem
Like his other books, lots of strange pseudo-magical happenings with the characters fumbling about just trying to figure out 'what's going on' but in this case all the p.o.i. are basically just stoner buddies that are blazed out of their minds all the time. But they are all thoughtful interesting people with their own talents and weaknesses. Pot isn't presented as a hazard nor as a panacea. It's virtues are highlighted more often than not, but Lethem avoids tub-thumping. It is, in the end, just the thing that facilitates the friendship of these people.
Can't help you pal, but I really identify with
>I used to be a militant teetotaler as a teen so I guess I’ve always felt some residual guilt over “selling out” by using, and I think the sense of having crossed a Rubicon by smoking at all encouraged me to resign myself to addiction.
I'm clean now, but after first experimenting with getting drunk and high and seeing how much fun it was I felt the urge to both experiment with every other drug I could find, and to I guess make up for all the lost time I'd spent sober. It didn't help that my first exposure was during a particularly depressed point of my life. Eventually the lifestyle begun to really take its toll on me and I embraced sobriety again, but now I feel this immense guilt and shame at ever having bothered with all the drugs. I guess it isn't necessarily the drugs themselves, but rather the lifestyle of excess I adopted with regard to them, but the guilt and shame are potent nonetheless.
Again I can't really help you but I wanted to get that off my chest.
Are there any books based on this concept
>protag finds miracle drug
>protag becomes a genius/superpowers
>but drugs have consequences!
Not really "finds" or "drug" but if you're ok with "undergoes" and "procedure", Flowers for Algernon is the standard text.
Short story original > novel.
yeah probably
>>8200334
Excellent
Lit humor thread
haha!
>>8200315
I DONT GET IT
I would an Allison though
Internet 2.0 is a mistake. Technological development should have stayed at keyboard and email (sans images). Forever.
have a fav
>>8200263
fuck off fantano
at least we have a interesting theme to write about
I dont get it.
>>8200224
Your mother does though, every night.
Did someone say Yellow King?
>>8200224
What don't you get?
Just marathoned the first three pages. When does it get good?
When you get to the limericks
Marathon the next three.
Then pace around the room for a good 15 minutes.
If you don't feel the urge to drop your old life away start reading from the beginning.
Just marathoned op's post. When does it get good?
I want to make a Pitchfork for literature and philosophy, divided into two sections: comtemporary and classics. Mostly because goodreads is fucking awful and falls victim to populist bias. I would like it to be /lit/ affiliated. Would anyone like to join me on this venture? Apart from my acerbic wit and acidic reviewing style, as well as my high degree of perspicacity when it comes to critically examining a text, I'm not really cut out for this. My knowledge of website design is pretty lacking. I could fund maintenance costs however.
>>8200122
A goodreads model won't work. The reason the opinions are mostly shit is because no one is paid to write those reviews. Just people shouting opinions on the internet.
If you want high quality writing, you have to pay for it.
>>8200122
>Mostly because goodreads is fucking awful and falls victim to populist bias.
This happened to Pitchfork as well.
It stopped being good when they started intellectualizing Nicki Minaj albums and pedestalizing normie shit like Kanye. They were fine when they focused on pop, electronic, alternative, and rock music.
Point being, this endeavour is doomed to failure but maybe if you get a comitted handful of intelligent people you'll have a couple of good years and bring something decent to light.
If reality is tainted by illusion,and you are the only one who realizes the truth,doesn't that make you the deluded one? Won't the illusion everyone is living in turn into reality? Do you know any books that talk about this?
Reported.
>>8200114
I-I'm sorry anon
>>8200114
Reported.
post the funniest book you ever read. I highly suggest you all download a copy of this. the LULZ are epic.
>>8200072
What, you don't think thoughts have matter?
>>8200227
Thoughts do have "matter", in an electrical sense.
>>8200247
Damn right!
>you learn rocket science hour per day, every day for a year
>you are master in rocket science
>you write every day, hour per day for a year, and you end with 800 page book
>tfw you wrote garbage
>>8200038
because writing is not a science, it's an art
>>8200038
Now you edit every day, hour per day for a year, and you end up with a 270 page book. And then you suck a different literary agent's dick every day, an hour per day for a year and you maybe get published.
Takes a lot longer than that to learn rocket science buddy boy
When you write (fiction), to what degree do you articulate the inner psychological life of your character? Or do you prefer to do as McCarthy tends to, and show the character's mind through their hands?
There's probably a balance to be struck. Or instead an intentional imbalance that provides consistency of diction, tone, mood, etc.
Provide good examples of either extreme if you can.
>>8200030
It's a massive shame she was blacked, now she's ruined forever.
>>8200039
name?
Hey /lit/, quick question.
Say a book is written and its setting is a real life town/city. How much about the city has to be omitted to avoid legal issues? Does it matter? Or like, can everything be used freely like street names, high schools, landmarks and the like?
none. as little or as much as you want there are no (legal) obligations
Just don't slander anyone and it's fine.
What is some writing or philosophy (which is accessible to plebs like me), that will make me get over the feeling of existential despair? I just want to feel happy about living and break out of this sort of pointless-dichotomy that my mind is entrenched in.
You need Kierkegaard and God in your life
>>8199914
Have you considered just going on vacation to Bangkok/Manilla and getting off your tits on MDMA?
Highly recommended for those annoying bouts of ennui and existential fuckupery.
>>8199918
I'm a man of strong scientific convictions
>>8199930
I don't do drugs ever, I have wanted to try it, although I had an extremely embarrassing and highly anxiety filled reaction to weed. I have no money or job either and I just don't know what to do with my life, so I don't think I could go on vacation if I wanted to. Really the only thing that interests me is the ladyboys in Thailand and ancient ruins deep within some inaccessible forests. Idk why I would wanna do the same thing I'm doing right now half way around the world somewhere else. I guess I'd wanna go to japan to see if they have a better selection of the type of hentai I like, but I'd have to learn japanese and I think I'd need to be alive for another 100 years or so if I wanted to have time and patience to try pursuing something like that.
