/lit/ - Literature

>>16834422
The vast majority of literature put out there today is schlock.

Schlock.

Riffle through the top 50 bestsellers on Amazon. Take a look at the booker prize winners of the last few years. Next to the great writers of the 20th century, it's orders of magnitude weaker in quality-- just as many of them failed in comparison to 19th century writers.

The general degradation of quality is noticeable, but its obviously still possible to improve. And if your writing is significantly better than the status quo, and you manage to get it published, you'll be noticed. I'm heading into academia (spare your sympathy) and the vast majority of Literature academics are practically gagging for a new Joyce or Nabokov. The whole "let's publish black lesbian immigrants and feel good about ourselves" is a loud minority who are slowly falling out of fashion.

Write something great and get it out there. There still exist people in high places with a real, enduring passion for literature, which is to say beauty and truth. Imagine being a professional book critic or academic and someone slips a never-before-seen Madame Bovary into the reading pile. I'd die of aesthetic pleasure.

>>16738214
Ditch Pessoa for now. Start with Ishiguro, he's inferior to the others although I do believe he's the best writer of this century so far. Read Nabokov next, since he's one of the greatest English prose stylists of all time (even though Pale Fire is inferior to Lolita). Then maybe Tolstoy, since you should follow up Swann's Way with the rest of ISOLT which will take you a good while. But Anna Karenina and ISOLT are probably the greatest novels ever produced, along with Madame Bovary and The Brothers Karamazov.

>>6216166
Exercise is definitely key for trying to overcome depression. Also it can be nice to just get outside and ride around a park or by the river (assuming you have these nearby).

I know that feel bro. Part of me feels like I should be going out and trying to find a gf, but the other half of me feels that I need to sort my job situation and university first...

Here's a nice song for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUkwzLeJ3YY

And here's a nice piece of artwork to look at

You should consider buying some 5-HTP. It's a precursor and intermediate in the synthesis of serotonin by your body. There isn't a whole load of research to prove its effectiveness, but I've been taking it for the past couple of weeks and it seems to have helped me out. My mood is much more elevated the majority of the time now than it was before. Even if this is a placebo, something has still changed for the better.