/lit/ - Literature

hermit edition

previous >>23099821

>>22771132

pondering edition

previous >>22659458

>>22567382
Write pre-jerk. Edit post-jerk.

>>22486064
Leave me to my studies, mother.

>>22258444
Watch her when Diane says the word "spam". Almost like repressed memories surging forward.
https://youtu.be/DMpguv7st7s

>>22106216
I need a sf/fantasy novel for a pessimist/nihilist looser like myself. I kinda enjoyed BOTNS and Bakker rencently, but not as much as when I read books such as Gotrek & Felix and Drizzt when I was a kid

what distinguishes someone from being a pseudointellectual vs an intellectual? I feel like it is wholly dependent on an outside person looking in that can demonstrably prove its shallowness. If that's the case, then there will always be someone smarter that can come along to disprove and or "know more", so how can anyone truly be an intellectual? Does pseud even mean anything at this point?

Incapacity to appreciate poetry is the most basic filter of taste. If you don't care for the most ancient literary pursuit, you don't care for literature.

How do you read your e-books? I use Lithium on a shitty Huawei tablet I got from work. Surprisingly comfy.

Why do we enjoy melancholy? Why do we like to suffer?

>>16654600
The Wise Man

>>16533043
Yes, I've read most of his prose works. Are you the Wagner-anon I occasionally talk with?

As far as Die Meistersinger, I dunno I think it fit well as a light comedy, and very touching in what it does. Perhaps it is Wagner's nature to be so dramatic, to always focus all of his artistic abilities sooner or later on the very grand and most important, but I still think it holds a place very similar to Shakespeare's comedies, and that this lightness is not lost at all in the typical character of his work, and the development of Die Meistersinger from a pure heart-warming comedy to the serious reflection of the world as it is that it became, though it's still a comedy.

>"It is impossible that you should not have sensed, under the opera's quaint superficies of popular humour, the profound melancholy, the lament, the cry of distress of poetry in chains, and its reincarnation, its new birth, its irresistible magic power achieving mastery over the common and the base."
[Wagner letter to King Ludwig (before the first performance of the work) in Munich 1868]

I mean musically if it were to have been what he had originally intended it to(akin to Shakespeare's comedies), then it would have had to be similar I imagine to Weber, but he couldn't quite help himself with the emotion of the work. Wagner was actually inspired by this painting of Rembrandt's, quite directly basing a scene on it.

>>16016075

The fact is that we don't want to be free. What is responsible for our problems is the fear of losing what we have and what we know. All these therapies, all these techniques, religious or otherwise, are only perpetuating the agony of man.

What books will help me cope with being an intellectual?

Staying up late and writing seems to me more important than anything I have to do, to better myself, to advance my career, anything. Even if it means neglecting the practical affairs that would see me materially happier.

When I sit there doing it it's like my mind is like superheated plasma, I become sovereign of galaxies and space and time my clear and captured ideas. My imagination--usually a hinderance-- becomes a source of energy and I forget myself, rise out and above and away from bitter petty things. It's the only time when I feel that I'm truly free, allowed to range liquidly over everything that comes to mind--and to take a step back from my emotions and let them breathe without them prodding me along.

Then when I'm done and I shut the book, I'm back to being just another guy on the street, stuck with circumstances I'm barely able to control, beholden and subject to structures of power and hierarchies and the screech of cities which the other night were my playthings.

It feels good to dissolve into the backdrop, to become pure thought and image. And then to come here and post on 4chan.

>>12052760

no, that's not what i'm saying. read what you just typed:

"this being said, at least for myself, resume padding and other superficial college-applications-oriented activities are means to an end, a way to make it to an institution where i'll FINALLY BE ABLE TO ENGAGE MYSELF IN REAL THINKING" (emphasis added)

what i'm saying is: that's the kind-of attitude that will never actually engage in "real thinking"--it's something always on the horizon, always prorogued, because if you think you will get to college and be automatically fulfilled on that level, you are sourly wrong, and in for nothing but disappointment

MY POINT is simply that those who tend to get into the top schools that arent legacy/sports, believe or not, like it or not, accept it or not, never went about with the asinine that "real thinking" would come IN THE FUTURE, but simply set about doing it

the reality is that so many people stress out and are full of anxiety in applying because they really aren't that interesting; they haven't started "real thinking"; they have done nothing beyond exist with their peers. can you blame them? absolutely--if only because i have met people from every demographic, every income bracket, every walk of life and corner of the world that have simply chosen to rise about those endless excuses and endless games and decided to just be something MORE

How does /lit/ understand the derivation of meaning from art?

There are many critical perspectives used to interpret art. One could argue that meaning is derived from what the auther intended given their context, another that it is the subjective experience of the reader. One could argue for an interpretation from a certain school, like, for example, a marxist reading of something. Other axis' might be entertainment, historical accuracy, intertextuality, exposition, do I identify with any of the characters or situations, etc.

Great art is supposed to be universal, in that the art reflect any of these perspectives and "fit" with some fundamentally universal emotional or intellectual movement that is depicted in the art. For example, Gregor Samsa can be interpreted through various lenses of alientation (Marxist, Freudian), or from the perspective of Kafka in relation to his family, etc. It is universal in it's ability to facilitate different valid perspectives.

Where does the actual meaning, then, come from? If it can come from any and all of these perspectives and be valid, is it just whichever perspectives you happen to be thinking of while reading? Can it be simultaneously subjectively and objectively meaningful?

>>10276199
>>10276421
You haven't answered my questions of whether or not you read Schopenhauer or Nietzsche. If you haven't, you really should. My suggestions are sincere.

>>10276353
I like Peterson, but he should sure as hell shouldn't be your greatest philosophic influence. He's doing a lot of good, but the man is merely a candle next to the sun of the greats. Any ancient Greek, post-Renaissance German, or post-turn-of-the-century French philosopher could blow him and all of his arguments out of the water, and drown him in their depth of reading. If you think Peterson is the end all and be all, you haven't read any philosophy.

Also, since you said:
>>10276602
>I dont take life particularly seriously
You could really benefit from Nietzsche, as embracing the Dionysian is sort of his shtick.

>>10276407
Another poor aphorism. You can literally flip to any page of Nietzsche's aphorisms and they would blow all of yours out of the water. You literally don't have hook to hang your metaphors.

>>10276421
Anyway, here are some more questions for you:
1) How do you feel about Antinatalism?
2) What's your stance on Nihilism?
3) Are things deterministic?
4) Who's your favourite poet?
5) Are you under 20 years old?

>Writer
Thomas Bernhard or Montaigne
>Poet
Fernando Pessoa or Yeats
>Book
The World as Will and Representation
>Composer
Bach or Ravel
>Band
Pink Floyd
>Painter
Rembrandt or Bosh
>Film
American Beauty