>tfw you read enough about academic literature to know that there are thousands of masterpieces in all languages that aren't discussed on /lit/ or on the internet apart from some obscure literary forums
>tfw you're too pleb to prove it
>tfw people think /lit/ is patrician
who shares this feel?
>>7887929
lets see. what masterpieces?
no need to post such banality on this board
just think these thoughts in your head and don't tell anyone else
>>7887929
>tfw people think /lit/ is patrician
no one thinks this
I share that feel.
I'd like to know about these obscure forums you speak of.
about the same
/lit/ is like /v/ if /v/ only talked about the top most iconic games of each 10-year generation of video games, with no sense of their development context or anything
when you actually start to have some idea of what's really out there, how backwater /lit/ is (and everywhere else desu), it's kind of staggering. it's weird to do some big project where you're necessarily immersing yourself in whole literary legacies of countries and centuries, connecting them all together and with other things you've researched before, and ultimately creating this massive unconscious network of instinctive feeling for the WESTERN CANON, and then come bcak to /lit/ and it's like
>dostoevsky dostoevsky dostoevsky dostoevsky dostoevsky dostoevsky dostoevsky dfw dfw nabokov joyce
it's all "big names" that punctuate movements, but no one knows what the movements are, what their context is, anything. they just know a single name, JOYCE. not one philosophical discussion on this board has ever shown even basic familiarity with even basic intellectual history, let alone 20th century. no discussion ever rises above the level of the most basic, outdated major points of any topic. endless threads about "so was machiavelli satire?" but not one thread about anything of substance. it's all undergrad meme shit.
the board is just undergrads and amateurs though. it's not a sin not to know everything. it's not even a sin to commit the typical sins of youth/undergradness, even though they're fucking annoying. the generally well-read person is an anachronism these days anyway. try actually finding one and it'll be some eccentric in his 50s. phd students are infinitely specialized morons with no general idea of intellectual culture or history. there's too much noise. no one knows where to start so they never do.
the one thing i hate about /lit/ is that it never does the one thing that would not only bypass the lack of contextual/broad knowledge, but actually encourage and aid in eliminating that lack, by having actual conversation at least about specific titles. but no one does that either. every thread is
>what did you think of this
>should i read this
>so what is this about
>is this author good
it's never some dude reading some modernist novel and asking questions about it, or trying to relate it to another one he read. it's never someone asking even basic groping questions about the context of what they're reading. even dumb bad questions are still good. there just aren't even any questions at all.
the one good thing /lit/ does is that it gives pretentious fucking faggots a place where they won't be socially shamed for wanting to be patrician, which is rare. the only other places like that are faggy university clubs and then they don't promote elitism, they promote a kayfabe circlejerk where everyone mutually agrees not to call each other pretentious for going "mmm ah yes, i quite enjoy perusing homer on a wintry morn"
gdgjudfjgdfgd
>>7887929
Can you please provide an example of 'some obscure literary forums'? That's such a fucking sexy design
>>7887969
tell me about that masterpiece indie underground game that /v /vg dont know about?
I can't find good games man.
>>7887929
speaks volumes about you that you choose to post this instead of the "masterpieces" you refer to
>>7887969
Copypasta tier kek
>>7887929
This logic doesn't make sense.
If you've read enough academic literature to know this, then surely you could just list the titles of some and others can take those and do their own homework if they so wished?
Anon who make uneventful blog tier threads like you are one of the main problems with this board by the way. Not that you'd ever admit this to yourself or anything.
>>7887978
Not him but /vr/ is where it's at for obscure masterpieces.
There are a few turbo nerds who really know their shit when it comes to obscure titles, especially untranslated japanese artpiece games.
Fuck, even /vr/ combined with hardcore gaming 101 tried to find a copy of Bad Dream Adventure and they finally did.
As far as contemporary obscure gems, I doubt you will find many because most of it is indie shit.
>>7887969
I'm about to go into lawschool and this is what I'm scared of most. It seems like any other topic one gets fanatical about theres this blurred middle ground of "I know enough to discuss this and explain it to someone who doesn't know whats going on, but I dont know it well enough to have a real discussion about it."
Like when you play pool and run the table on someone who's only played when drinking with friends vs the guy thats there all night and day practicing his shots. /lit/ is that guy that knows just enough to be better than the vast majority of people that dont give a shit about whatever fucking thing the person just got good at, but everyone else from a third party perspective can see that the person is simply a novice. I can't congratulate myself for reading a fucking book, this shit takes longer than movies and is less innovative than video games, and 9/10 books I pick up bores me to sleep. But god damn. That 1/10 is just brilliant. That one I dont want to put down. But I dont know enough about the context of that book or what made it literately important, and desu desu senpai, I don't want to know at this point. There's no need to know and theres no desire of a why behind it. I may as well go back to watching lists of movies that are required and playing MGRR over and over again.
>>7887978
I once made a stick figure visual novel about eating hatdags. It's pretty underground, only about 12 people have played it.
>>7887969
How do I become well read?
Is there a good syllabus of primary works and academic works that I can read to not be a shitter?
Show me how to live senpai.
>>7887991
maybe he just found the wiki charts and realized he's fucked.
i am surprised this guy >>7887969 who sees us as /v/ isn't worried by the lack of "i finished this X chart quest, gib me muh X chart badge" posting.
instead he typed all that out when the obvious problem that /lit/ doesn't read as often as /v/ games gets ignored. he even implies /lit/ thinks patricians aren't dead romans and they're a good thing. definitely /mu/ trying to deflect blame for superficiality.
>>7887969
>when you actually start to have some idea of what's really out there, how backwater /lit/ is (and everywhere else desu), it's kind of staggering.
the average /lit/ posters lack of interest in poetry is a good example of this.
The amount of pretentiousness in this thread makes me wish I could spank all your asses.
>>7887969
But I don't want to know everything about the context and development of any one particular movement, or even many. I want a broad variety of things that are really good or interest me so I can use them as inspiration for creating something new and innovative.
Obviously we're rarely going to have in-depth discussions of any one book because not enough people will have read it critically at the same time. This isn't a book club or a seminar, this is fucking 4chan. For all your airs of intellectualism, it's a bit telling that you don't see the absurdity of expecting otherwise.
>>7888009
the canon and then start carving out your own canon
but you're just gonna shitpost instead
>>7887969
There are very,very rarely actual discussions that go beyond "should I, what did you think of, are they good, etc." You just won't see them in any of the big threads because the big threads are going to always be full of memes and shitposts.
Though I think the notion of being well-read in the sense of having read or even being aware of most of the classics from all over the world, or even comprehensively understanding the entire literary history of one country from start to finish, isn't really practical because you'd just be reading nonstop since there's just so fucking much out there. If it's your life's work that's one thing, but there's no fathomable non-academic reason to devote that much time to literature in such an overly broad sense. I don't know why you'd knock specialization either. There's just so much that going in-depth on one topic or movement or whatever makes a lot more sense than trying to cast as wide a net as possible as one person. Honestly, I think you might legitimately be autistic if you think your standards for breadth make any sort of sense.
>>7887969
perfect post. you'll get a ton of hate for it. but you're not wrong. well stated, anon. well stated.
>>7888009
>How do I become well read?
there are no shortcuts. you need to develop your own sensibility and ear. it's a thankless and often depressing slog and you'll only get there if you already have that specific drive within you to begin with. people take to different things. you need to take to lit with a certain monomania. if that isn't you then just read lightly because you won't get near anything well-read without that obsession.
>>7888041
>perfect post. you'll get a ton of hate for it. but you're not wrong. well stated, anon. well stated.
lol pretty sure this is an old stan pasta.
sounds like his voice.
>>7888050
you read a lot. like seriously there's no magical shortcut. if you actually like reading this shouldnt be a chore. if you find yoruself reading just for the sake of being well read and slogging through stuff then maybe literature (in the sense of "becoming well read") just isn't for you. there's nothing wrong with that but too many people pretend to like literature for the intellectual/prestige associated with it and not for an inherent love of reading/stories/books, which is a prequisite to becoming actually well-read.
im not hyper well read but im ok. im probably in the top 1-2% of /lit/ in terms of books/"literature"/"classics" read. i pale to people who actually dedicate their entire lives/careers reading in terms of volume.
>>7888042
It's pointless wankery though. If you spend all your time single-mindedly focused on meeting some arbitrary standards of being "well read" (What would you even do? Read all the Greeks? All the Romans? Every major playwright from Shakespeare's day? All the modernists? Every 50s-70s postmodernist? Where do you even start or stop before you're "well-read"?) you'll never actually use all the information you're cramming into your skull for anything other than reading more.
>>7888057
exactly. it's wankery. but some people just like reading. you should not read to become well read, you should read because you like books/find it entertaining or fulfilling, and then becoming "well read" by some arbitrary standard comes as a side effect of that. that should never be the goal per se.
>>7888059
I do like reading, but not enough to cast a net that wide. I know what sorts of books and authors I'm interested in and if that means I'll only have read a few thousand books or so tops by the end of my life, I'm fine with that.
>>7888050
>Do you guys consider yourself well read?
i've a ways to go, personally. i'm at a stage where i'm truly developing a deeply nuanced sensibility as a reader. i think i can finally say that much without hubris.
but i wouldn't be comfortable saying anything more. this thing takes years and years m8.
>>7888078
I think the key is: intertextuality.
>>7888009
the unfair thing about becoming a generally well-read smart dude is that it's structured in plateaus and bottlenecks, and the earliest bottlenecks are the hardest ones.
once you hit a certain level you get momentum and it becomes easy as fuck, but at the beginning it's almost stupidly difficult to make anything "stick." learning anything is like this. i've had a guitar sitting in my room and staring at me for ten years, because i never just put in the gruelling first real months that it would take to get my momentum. i didn't learn any languages until super late, because the "am i even doing this right? what the fuck am i doing?" phase lasts way, way too long.
the best advice is to cultivate mindfulness and then apply it to your own willpower, and use that to get through the first few plateaus of anything. i know from hindsight that i should have just gone AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! and persevered through any one of my 15 attempts to learn a language, because now, after attempt #16 (and subsequent) took off and i've since learned how to learn languages, i know how fucking easy it was all along, and i can see the reward that was on the other side of the tunnel. i can't go back in time and do it over again, but i can at least apply what i know from this experience to the guitar, and just pick the thing up tomorrow and get through the initial annoying phase of newbie tedium, practice, mistakes, etc.
literature and philosophy are the same. the whole reason "start with the greeks" became a meme is because of how tempting it is, to the vast majority of people who now know philosophy well but who learned it very haphazardly and inefficiently, to think "MAN I WISH I HADN'T BEEN SUCH A PUSSY, AND THAT I HAD JUST SOLDIERED THROUGH THE GREEKS," and then to project that wisdom vicariously onto you. it's also bad advice in a way, because 100% pure rewardless slog is awful. but the basic spirit of it comes from a good place. i wish someone had just said "practice with that guitar an hour a day or i'll cut you," five years ago.
just start reading and smash through it for a year or two, and you'll get through the first bottlenecks, and start to feel momentum. everything suddenly makes more sense, connections are made, connections between existing clusters of connections are made, genuine epiphanies start to happen, suddenly there is genuine excitement to go read a certain book because you finally understand how important it was to the development of xyz. again, the totally unfair thing about that phase is that it comes mostly at the END rather than the beginning.
practical advice on enjoying literature and philosophy more: binge-read short digestible survey books/textbooks. don't try to get knowledge down perfectly, or memorize everything from one great big book. just get it from enough overlapping sources that you cement context in your brain. everything is 500x harder to learn, understand, or enjoy when it's in a vacuum.
Steps for not being a retarded crippled literate-wannabe baby:
>don't live in an english speaking country (maybe canada is alright?)
>read
>???
>profit
as far as being well read goes i just start with literary movements.
For instance, I took a class on cold war lit which led me to new journalism which led me to the beats and to women writers and war poetry, which lead me to the black arts movement and the harlem renaissance. we also read some pkd which somehow led to me studying french surrealism and so on and so on.
all movements bleed into each other, pick a starting point senpai
>>7888069
and thats perfectly fine
if its any consolation a few thousand firmly places you in the top decimal percentages of the population in terms of well-read-ness
>>7888057
>It's pointless wankery though.
i'm not going to placate you and tell you that you're somehow less of a wanker for lurking literature boards to make posts about literature being pointless. if you want to convince yourself of these egotistical misgivings because you don't want to read that much then that is your prerogative, but don't expect to be intellectually coddled over it.
>>7888086
this guy sounds like a windbag but he's right
listen to him. esp
> start to feel momentum. everything suddenly makes more sense, connections are made, connections between existing clusters of connections are made, genuine epiphanies start to happen, suddenly there is genuine excitement to go read a certain book because you finally understand how important it was to the development of xyz. again, the totally unfair thing about that phase is that it comes mostly at the END rather than the beginning.
>>7888095
I'm not saying literature is pointless. I'm saying the arbitrary notion of reading an x amount of classics so you can call yourself "well-read" is. If all the authors of the books you'd have to read to call yourself that read as many books as you're saying one needs to in order to be "well-read", they would've never had the time to write the books that you're using to stroke your ego in the first place.
I know not everyone here cares about writing, but ironically, once you take the idea of reading past a certain point you're never going to write anything (or at least not anything that isn't just about all the stuff you've read) because you're just going to perpetually be shuffling from one book to the next without pause. They're two sides of the same coin and going all in on either one is antithetical to one's pursuit of the other.
>>7888109
Wrong. Every great author read a ridiculous amount before producing their major works, especially by today's standards. They're not necessarily reading the same things we had access to today but they read a loooooot.
There's no such thing as reading too much or waiting too long before writing.
>>7888086
>literature and philosophy are the same. the whole reason "start with the greeks" became a meme is because of how tempting it is, to the vast majority of people who now know philosophy well but who learned it very haphazardly and inefficiently, to think "MAN I WISH I HADN'T BEEN SUCH A PUSSY, AND THAT I HAD JUST SOLDIERED THROUGH THE GREEKS," and then to project that wisdom vicariously onto you. it's also bad advice in a way, because 100% pure rewardless slog is awful. but the basic spirit of it comes from a good place. i wish someone had just said "practice with that guitar an hour a day or i'll cut you," five years ago.
confirmed for not reading the greeks
>tfw started with the greeks because sex and fart jokes
most of the greeks are hilarious shit. it's only impotent wankers who are keeping them on a pedestal like you which is stopping newbs from having fun.
>>7888118
"A ridiculous amount" by today's standards isn't the same thing as a ridiculous amount by the standards of say, even 50-100 years ago and you're retarded if you think otherwise. Besides that, there was a much more standardized idea of what it meant to be "well-read" instead of this "read everything ever and when you're done read some more" bullshit.
>>7888129
For like 1500 year the education of the great writers was learning to read Latin/Greek classics and the Bible in their original language. There is something to that, the process of being systematically exposed to the great conversation of Western lit for 20-25 years before you set out on your life as a man that is lost in our bullshit 'learn to do meaningless algebra problems and write 5 paragraph personal essays' mass produced education that we all went through (in America), imo. We come to them like children, we know nothing. That negatively impact our ability to understand what they are trying to say.
>>7887969
saved
>>7888118
This guy knows. You need to know most (if not all) of the classics to be considered anything above pop-tier by today's standards. It's like any competitive sport; People no longer just pick it up and produce universally meaningful works. Even Bukowski was extremely well-read. The dude lived off of chocolate bars and alcohol and spent most of his free time at libraries. You cannot understate the importance of reading.
>>7887929
>>tfw people think /lit/ is patrician
what people
>tfw you read enough about academic literature to not grasp the most obvious fact about 4chan.org/lit/
>>7887929
You're close to realize that lit like everything else is relative. You're not finding obscure masterpieces but your own identity as a reader and as a human being. Be happy. Also, sorry if my english is broken.
>>7888118
>Every great author read a ridiculous amount before producing their major works
Many of them also didn't reveal how much they didn't know, just as you or I don't talk about the books we haven't read. I've never quite got around to reading Keats. I know a few anecdotes about him; I've read a few of his poems in school; but if I were to call myself familiar with his poetry, I'd be exaggerating. This isn't a fact that I need to tell anyone. I hide it pretty well. If a conversation ever settles on Keats, I can fake it low-key until it moves on to something else. If I were to write a great poem, and make my name immortal, how would anyone find out? Would they scan my "Collected Emails" and mark every place I don't mention him? Count the times I don't quote him? If I dropped one reference to Keats resenting Newton for robbing the rainbow of its magic, would my readers think "what great reserves must be behind this small show of knowledge!"
invariably as you get very deep into the writings of some great writer, you notice that they know a small group of writers really well, most only generally, some hardly at all. Their learning is indeed great; but particular, and incomplete. Most great writers are not Johnson. The young writers especially are always concealing the huge gaps in their knowledge, and letting their reader believe that they know more than they say.
It's true that these were brilliant people who read constantly. It's also true that there are a LOT of books out there. I'm not trying to excuse anyone's laziness. It just seems to me that our picture of the "great writer" is often very unreal.
>>7887969
what is the postmodern movement all about, anon?
>>7887937
Was recently told to go to lit if I was looking for something more patrician
>>7888205
allowing what you say is true (i question the actual extent but that's a difference of degree and not of kind), it still stands that there is, in my mind, no such thing as reading too much and not writing. if anything 99.99% of "writers" write too much and don't read enough.
>>7887929
After discovering Christian philosophy in the Middle Ages(Anselm, aquinas) I looked up Byzantine equivalents. Who here Psellos?
/lit/ is english insular. Here there is no discussion of literature not written in english, with the exception of a very few classics. Many books from other countries or have not been translated into english, or are little know.
>>7888205
Better to read one good book a thousand times than a thousand mediocre books one time
So much hot air in this thread. I can actually fucking taste the irony.
>>7887969
most writers are useless as intellectuals
socrates realized this when he questioned the poets. just because they capture something doesn't mean they understand its mechanisms. you don't have to understand them either to derive pleasure from the work or learn something from it.
>patricianness is determined by the quantity of masterworks one reads
Applauso
>>7888134
>For like 1500 year the education of the great writers was learning to read Latin/Greek classics and the Bible in their original language.
tfw didnt go to seminary
never gonna make it
>>7888532
>tfw fell for the STEM meme and now I'm up at like 5 in the morning trying to figure out a meaningless physics problem set and not reading Plato in Greek instead growing my soul
>>7888567
You can go back and read them after.
Graduated Economics major here desu.
>>7888515
i think it's good that people are either writers or critics. i just wished more people stopped trying to meme their way into writing, like its some cool fashionable thing to do.
>>7888402
bible thumper pls leave
>>7888402
I would have agreed if you said "five times" or even "ten times" but a thousand I can't agree with
>>7888255
>if anything 99.99% of "writers" write too much and don't read enough.
I can't agree with a statement like "99.99% of 'writers' write too much", but I agree that most of them don't read enough. As I said, I'm not trying to excuse anyone's laziness. All of us ought to read a lot more.
Tfw you realize that lit is just v, but with books
i know that feel and what a surprise /lit/ wants to be spoonfed the answers so they can pretend they found it on their own
>>7888017
>so I can use them as inspiration for creating something new and innovative.
by having meme understandings of isolated works? jesus. i bet you think pollock and duchamp sum up modernism
Is anyone going to post these obscure, rarely discussed masterpieces?
>>7887929
this movie is so overrated. Kieślowski is shit.
>>7888888
WOW!
>>7888888
impressive digits but a bad opinion
>>7888567
Plato is shit tho
Epicuros-democritus is the real deal
>>7888567
let no one ignorant of geometry enter
ironically, people spend so much time reading plato they have no time for what plato admired: maths and thinking about problems yourself,
plato would rather you subjected YOUR OWN beliefs to the socratic method, than read about socrates applying the socratic method to someone elses beliefs.
the dialogues are just a really long set of examples. not a collection of facts you must learn.
bravo for reading greek thou
>>7888109
i agree with what you're tapping into here. i think the idea of being well read is perpetuated much more by people observing someone who reads alot, rather than someone actively reading to become well read.
reading isn't like learning an instrument - you learn to play guitar to become good at playing. you read books for personal enjoyment and fulfilment; due to the fact that there are lists of greats out there, it makes sense that one would read more of these in order to gain wider knowledge and thus achieve this fulfilment.
the notion of being well read is an oxbridge pile of bollocks in my opinion - it's all very well and good being well read but it doesn't count for much if you're still a wanker
>>7888888
Great mother of sexts!
>>7888295
Almost makes you think this is a board populated by native English speakers, huh.
>>7888826
Is that Bronn from GOT?
>>7888086
Good post, post more
>>7888109
>>7889058
I don't know guys. Reading a lot of good /lit/ definitely isn't like learning an instrument, but it is like listening to a lot of good music.
If you know how to play an instrument but you don't have an extensive enough history of listening to a lot of good, different music in a lot of different genres (serious or popular or folk), you'll just be repeating what other people have already 'said'. Therefore, no self-expression will be achieved.
Of course, you do still also need to have a lot of practice with how to actually play your damned instrument. But without being well-listened, you won't make any real impact, except maybe as a show-off with good technique and style but no actual substance.
>>7887929
I think the entire patrician meme is hilarious when it isn't ironic. We're all aggresively middlebrow.
>>7887932
Milkbottle H by Gil Orlovitz
Take 5 by D. Keith Manos
Darconville's Cat by Alexander Theroux
Women and Men by Joseph McElroy
The Great Fire of London by Jacques Roubaud
Wittgenstein's Nephew by Thomas Bernhard
The Tunnel by William Gass
Nadia by Andre Breton
Larva: a Midsummer Night's Babel by Julian Rios
>>7889518
>women and men
>the tunnel
both /lit/ memes
>bernhard
well received and discussed often here
>theroux
>rios
>orlovitz
frequently cited. not sure how often they're read, but far from unknown
>>7889518
>Women and Men by Joseph McElroy
>The Tunnel by William Gass
>Nadia by Andre Breton
These are posted all the time. So are Bernhard and Rios. And it's Nadja.
>>7888295
Dis-ça au shill d'Houellebecq
>>7888838
>spoonfed
fuck off with this /a/ mentality
