/lit/ - Literature

>Green loved the study of literature. In a 2014 interview, he was asked, "And literature is written to be entertaining?" to which he replied emphatically, "Absolutely. My God, to read without joy is stupid. He continued, "If a book bores you, leave it, don't read it because it's famous, don't read a book because it's modern, don't read a book because it's old. If a book is tedious for you, leave it... that book has not been written for you."

>Green commented afterwards, "If you follow charts, if you talk about how many books you have managed to get through in X period of time, if you talk about "entry-level" literature, if you think reading literature is self-improvement, if you think it is like lifting heavier and heavier weights, stop reading."

>"If a book bores you, leave it, don't read it because it's famous, don't read a book because it's modern, don't read a book because it's old. If a book is tedious for you, leave it... that book has not been written for you."

>Green loved the study of literature. In a 2014 interview, he was asked, "And literature is written to be entertaining?" to which he replied emphatically, "Absolutely. My God, to read without joy is stupid.

If you follow charts, if you talk about how many books you have managed to get through in X period of time, if you talk about "entry-level" literature, if you think reading literature is self-improvement, if you think it is like lifting heavier and heavier weights, stop reading.

>If you want to take up serious reading dont treat your reading list like buffet of literary history to be sampled, pick one topic to master
>Time is precious, reading Mishima, then Carlyle, then Art of War, there's no momentum there, choices must build geometrically
>A reading list of 10 classics is worse than one of 10 books about same classic. Doing latter will produce lasting gains, former wont
>Your reading knowledge and critical capacity must be trained and disciplined in a structured manner to build up that grey matter
>Books arent checkboxes to be ticked on your erudition application, they are not so easy to exhaust, require many viewpoints to discern truly
>I wouldn't expect to get a good handle on a book until studying the author, the era, the genre, and the criticism
>These perspectives interlock to create understanding, just read 1 thing in passing and it wont grow roots in your mind, you need to compost

>Green always loved the study of literature. In a 2009 interview, he was asked, "And literature is written to be entertaining?" to which he replied emphatically, "Absolutely. My God, to read without joy is stupid!"

Everyone excited about his new book?

I climbed the slope. I climbed to the sound of the birds who flapped their wings in fear as I passed; I did not look to the side and managed to avoid all the tree stumps. I felt that I had been instantly cured by climbing like this without a thought in my head. When I reached the top, a cool night wind blew on my perspiring body.
I was surprised by the sight before me. The black-out had long since been suspended, and now a sea of lights stretched into the distance. This struck me almost as a miracle, since I had not once come up to this place at night since the end of the war.
The lights formed one solid body. They were scattered over the entire flat surface, giving no impression of being cither near or far; what rose before me in the night was a huge, transparent structure composed entirely of lights, which seemed to be spreading out its winged tower and to have grown complicated horns. Here, indeed, was a city. Only the forest round the Imperial Palace was unlighted, and it looked like a great black cave. Now and then in the direction of Eizan Mountain the lightning would flash in the dark sky.
“This," I thought, "is the mundane world. Now that the war has ended, people are being driven about under that light by evil thoughts. Innumerable couples are gazing at each other under that light, and in their nostrils is the smell of the deed that is like death, which already is pressing directly on them. At the thought that these countless lights are all obstructive lights, my heart is comforted. Please let the evil that is in my heart increase and multiply indefinitely, so that it may correspond in every particular with that vast light before my eyes! Let the darkness of my heart, in which that evil is enclosed, equal the darkness of the night, which encloses those countless lights!"

>Suddenly the screen's shadow wavered and enveloped the entire cornice, the entire ceiling, and other shadows from the other side rushed to meet it; for an instant the shadows ran together but then with new speed they drew nearer, wavered, merged, and all was talk. "Death!" She thought.

I thought hating him was a meme

If I found out that his works were being taught in my local public high school, how would I go about stopping this? I fear it's a bigger problem than most of us realize.

>John Green novels are taught in literature classes in the United States of America
It's not like he's the worst writer in the world, but this triggers me to no end. I don't want my tax dollars spent forcing kids to read his smut.

What's your favorite John Green passage?

Hi my name is John Green and I have sex with my wife.

>>8690505
>I wanted so badly to lie down next to her on the couch, to wrap my arms around her and sleep. Not fuck, like in those movies. Not even have sex. Just sleep together in the most innocent sense of the phrase. But I lacked the courage and she had a boyfriend and I was gawky and she was gorgeous and I was hopelessly boring and she was endlessly fascinating. So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was hurricane.

When normal people read, what is happening in their mind? I just had a frightening thought that they are not seeing aesthetic processes, but the words are just a window the way a child reads A, B, Cs

>Whites coated the landscape like mold fed and spread by wet-willies and the rain and drain of white tears. Standing overhead, my shadow, my second black body, darkened those below. I was the one drop rule. The little black cloud. Black on white like pen on paper. This was the beginning of the beginning and the end of nothing really.

Is he capable of making his own Infinite Jest?

>>8668160
>Whites coated the landscape like mold fed and spread by wet-willies and the rain and drain of white tears. Standing overhead, my shadow, my second black body, darkened those below. I was the one drop rule. The anti-body. The little black cloud. Black on white like pen on paper. This was the beginning of the beginning and the end of nothing really.

so what does this mean? anything?

>>8601598
I want pic related to write his own Infinite Jest regardless of quality

>>8566972
About to order she tells me: The method is: the new girl, this time Manny-Handy the tranny, the hazetta, has to pee a full load in the ice cube tray. This isn't done in the bathroom but it's not done out of privacy and comfort for OSHA purposes. Ice, or this time iced T, is dumped in the coke machine and melts into toilet water. You order your drink. Coke machine fizzes like piss. If you're trained to it, you can taste it, if you've tasted too much of it, you wouldn't be able to taste it at all anymore.

>>8568122
>I realized that I didn't make a mistake. I was made of mistakes. People are made of mistakes. This is what people are made of. Remember that people are made up of stars, our own celestial bodies, what comprises others incredibly out of reach yet twinkling in the distance, preconceived and premature, and yet we ourselves are made of the same cosmic dust-to-dust. Always remember, also, the universe was made by accident. And it all makes sense, because she is my sunbeam.
-"The Approximate Cost of Loving Caroline"

>Margot wore makeup like wood glue. I was the qawky, gangly teenager, with limbs like freshly washed baby carrots, starting at square tile one of the high school entrance. I had a stack of books the size of two Infinite Jests and a paperback Girl With Curious Hair. I was looking her, dead, in the eyes.
-"Paper Towns"

>"Why are you speaking to me, Colin?" When she spoke, she made it a breeze. When others spoke, I only heard wind. And yet, when I spoke to her, I talked to the wind.
-"An Abundance of Katherines"

>>8502184
>I realized that I didn't make a mistake. I was made of mistakes. People are made of mistakes. This is what people are made of. Remember that people are made up of stars, our own celestial bodies, what comprises others incredibly out of reach yet twinkling in the distance, preconceived and premature, and yet we ourselves are made of the same cosmic dust-to-dust. Always remember, also, the universe was made by accident. And it all makes sense, because she is my sunbeam.
-"The Approximate Cost of Loving Caroline"

>Margot wore makeup like wood glue. I was the qawky, gangly teenager, with limbs like freshly washed baby carrots, starting at square tile one of the high school entrance. I had a stack of books the size of two Infinite Jests and a paperback Girl With Curious Hair. I was looking her, dead, in the eyes.
-"Paper Towns"

>"Why are you speaking to me, Colin?" When she spoke, she made it a breeze. When others spoke, I only heard wind. And yet, when I spoke to her, I talked to the wind.
-"An Abundance of Katherines"

>>8483027
>I realized that I didn't make a mistake. I was made of mistakes. People are made of mistakes. This is what people are made of. Remember that people are made up of stars, our own celestial bodies, what comprises others incredibly out of reach yet twinkling in the distance, preconceived and premature, and yet we ourselves are made of the same cosmic dust-to-dust. Always remember, also, the universe was made by accident. And it all makes sense, because she is my sunbeam.
-"The Approximate Cost of Loving Caroline"

>Margot wore makeup like wood glue. I was the qawky, gangly teenager, with limbs like freshly washed baby carrots, starting at square tile one of the high school entrance. I had a stack of books the size of two Infinite Jests and a paperback Girl With Curious Hair. I was looking her, dead, in the eyes.
-"Paper Towns"

>"Why are you speaking to me, Colin?" When she spoke, she made it a breeze. When others spoke, I only heard wind. And yet, when I spoke to her, I talked to the wind.
-"An Abundance of Katherines"

>implying john green isnt the greatest author of our time
fucking plebs

>>8142337
Figure [insert favourite writer here]'s worst prose must be a million times better than anything written by John Green at least.