/lit/ - Literature

>>20472469
Here’s what I know my female friends and acquaintances read and where:

M. : Reads borderline pornographic „romance“ novels in public, reads and writes fanfictions.

J. : Loves Harry Potter, doesn’t seem to have read much else. Also read Percy Jackson, probably hasn’t read anything in a whole. Reads at home.

L. : Says she has read Dostoyevsky. Can’t even name the title correctly. Talks about a „feminist“ book some model (who danced topless in a music video) wrote about how sexist it is to be objectified. Complains about how thats not the reality of lost women, fishing for compliments. Reads at home.

A. : Reads BDSM stories on her phone during lectures.

N. : Reads books about „witches“ in Berlin for her degree. Reads in the library. Haven’t seen any other book in her room.

Is equality of the sexes really this big of a lie or are my female friends just shit? I’ve had a female friend even admit that she has given up on reading and just doesn’t bother being able to do it. These are all university students.
Meanwhile my male friends and acquaintances have read classics of the western canon and philosophy.

The only women who I know read books written for an audience who hasn’t the mental development of children are my mother and my brother very nerdy gf.

>>19472502
There are absolutely criticisms that have merit, but I think the problem here is many of the crits are subjective things. And all too often the crits are too harsh, people will shit on your writing just because it doesn't copy the style of their favorite author, and they hold amateur works to the same standards as the greatest literary works of all time. It doesn't help that everyone here is probably autistic and overly obsessive with their work, and the people who post their writing typically aren't extremely confident in their writing, and if you are confident then you're not going to be asking for crits on 4chan. Personally I have a problem where I need to be great at everything I do, even my hobbies like writing. But I actually stopped writing for over a year just because I posted a few things here and got shit on every single time and was simply convinced I couldn't write. Then I posted it to other places and found that some people loved my work. Again, nothing wrong with crits, and I do think a lot of anons here have great advice, but the loudest just shit on people's writing because they don't like it.

>>17712680
Physics, pursuing a master's degree in optical engineering, I really can't study online.

>>16698853
I sincerely wonder what it's like to good at something sometimes. Like TRULY in the top 2% of skilled people at something. I was having a conversation with an older co-worker and he was telling me realized he'd gone through life without being particularly "great" at anything. He's tried his hand at all kinds of hobbies and trades, from playing piano to lifting to dancing and he told me he really could only be considered passable at any of the things he did. He has a great life all things considered a pretty hot wife nice house cool car but I showed him a video of some japanese kid playing one of those Taiko drum arcade machines and he suddenly just had an epiphany like "man I have never and will never be as good at anything as that kid is at that". I had the same realization but even sadder is I could see myself in ten years time being where he is. Like I could predict my own mediocrity decades in advance. Like watching some painfully slow metaphorical train with "absolutely average" painted on its side come creeping towards me from the horizon at an agonizing pace.

It's truly a depressing thing to think about, even though it should matter very little. I would like to taste for one day what it'd be like to just be absolutely peerless at something.

Does anyone else feel that Nabakov is overrated?

I enjoyed Lolita, it was some of the best prose that I have read, Invititation to a Beheading was a confusing whirlwind of beautiful imagery (I didn't like the book, only enjoyed the imagery/prose), Pale Fire was actually pretty good, but left very little to no impression on me, and I could barley get through 30 pages of Ada without getting angry at what seemed to be decent prose injected with little zeal and a lot of pretentiosness.

I think he is skilled in writing prose, and two of his books I have enojyed but I really think that he is quite overrated.

Am I in the minority for this?

I feel as if my mind is an infinite ocean, and I am the captain of a boat in it. There are no landmarks to gauge distance, no way to know if I've already been to this part of the ocean. I ask questions but receive no answers. I feel trapped by my thoughts. I am obsessed with a pursuit of knowledge, and feel as if whatever I know is a drop compared to the vast ocean of what I don't know. There is no way to compare my knowledge to another person, I am the only one on this ship, and I have yet to see another one. I read something, and I feel stupid because I don't understand it. On my journey to understand it, I run into things even more nuanced and specific and despite learning a small amount of information, I am met with a new seemingly infinite expanse. I am a fool if I think I will ever know the answer to everything.

So how many books have you written this year, /lit/? Better not have been lazy.

What are some books about falling in love with your best friend's girl?

Are there any good books that discuss the intellectual history of the Jewish people? I was listening to a lecture about them and learnt that a rabbi would stab a Torah and they of their students would be able to recite the entire page that the tip of the knife landed on. Also a heard a story that it was common for a 1st century 14 year old Jew to have memorized the entire Torah. Are there any books that talk about the history of the Jews specifically focusing on this area and not conspiratorial. Much appreciated thx.

Hi /lit/. I'm a autodidact under construction and I kinda feel like I'm at a crossroad at the moment. I want to start with the Greeks and study the western canon and deepen my understanding of philosophy while at the same time become a theologian and study of church history. But I feel like I have to choose one or the other. How do people do it? How do they structure their study sessions and become experts in more than one specified field? I know I could learn the two subject within the context of each other such as how platonic or Aristotelian philosophy has effected Christian thinking and exegesis, but in the other hand I don't know want to learn the subjects within the context of each other but also study the subject independently of each other.

If I haven't got the brain power of power to will should I just choose one and give up being a master of 2 subjects or is there a way that I can have a deep understanding of both without compromise?

Many thanks

Are there any books that deal with, in some way, architectural psychology?

I've been getting into architecture and was wondering if there could be homes that were built in such a way as to slowly drive its occupants to insanity. I then thought it would make for a good book setting and wondered if there were any that have aleady tried their hand at it.

So something that I've been pondering for a very long time (which is partly Eva related and partly literature related). You see some of these stories with so many outlandish things, I have to wonder when it comes to how these people construct a story: is there such a thing as a terrible idea, or is there only terrible execution?