/lit/ - Literature

>>22263865
One of the most thrilling bipoc writers out there to frank.

>metaphysical realism
prefiero el infrarealismo

Here's some Bolano. Not the best prose stylist in my opinion, but he has a way of throwing in unexpected metaphors that really tunes in with his general way of doing things. There's always something "secret" about his stories, and the same seems true, on a smaller scale, for his prose.

>So what did Amalfitano’s students learn? They learned to recite aloud. They memorized the two or three poems that they loved most in order to remember them and recite them at the proper times: funerals, weddings, moments of solitude. They learned that a book was a labyrinth and a desert. That there was nothing more important than ceaseless reading and traveling, perhaps one and the same thing. That when books were read, writers were released from the souls of stones, which is where they went to live after they died, and they moved into the souls of readers as if into a soft prison cell, a cell that later swelled to burst. That all writing systems are frauds. That true poetry resides between the abyss and misfortune and that the grand highway of selfless acts, of the elegance of eyes and the fate of Marcabru, passes near its abode. That the main lesson of literature was courage, a rare courage like a stone well in the middle of a lake district, like a whirlwind and a mirror. That reading wasn’t more comfortable than writing. That by reading one learned to question and remember. That memory was love.

>>18729068
Immensely, especially when it comes to novels and poetry. Novels have unironically opened my mind to different ways of living, made me more imaginative, more empathetic and curious about others, their thoughts and their perspectives on life. In general, sharing stories is a great thing and I love being in the mental space where people share stories, both when reading and when talking. Novels made me more outgoing and keen to see and interact with other people, and they have also generally made me less afraid of feeling what I feel and of life in general. More in general, reading about people's lives, even if it's just fiction (good fiction, of course, which depicts life well), unironically made me braver in facing both practical difficulties and psychological despair. There is something about stories conveyed through words alone that I find nowhere else. I may regret many things when I die, but not a single page I have read was a waste of time, not even the ugly ones.

>>17503724
Savage Detective and the whole bolano bibliography is what you want to read right now. Books for desperate people in search for courage