/lit/ - Literature

I would like to be lonely in crowded place. But everything is closed.

Why is the retard section of The Sound and the Fury so comfy

How important is life experience to writing good books? Are there any examples of great writers that were scared immature manchildren afraid of experiencing real life, or do you have to experience a lot and mature to be a good writer?

How can you confirm that happiness is really what you want most in the world? Sometimes I think that I would prefer some aesthetic form of self-destruction to just serene happiness. Any books about this?

Is it really worth it to even try to become a writer these days? The days of becoming a figure like Joyce are over. No one gives a shit about literature anymore. Sure, ideally all writers shouldn't be driven by a need for recognition, but it seems to me like it would be a very shitty life to spend your life writing books that no one gives a shit about. It seems like the attempt to become a great artist is an old-fashioned dream at this point, and a delusional pining for a past that doesn't exist any longer. Writers are not taken setiously anymore, and it is easy to tell that because of this, even writers don't take themselves that seriously anymore. Just watch any interview with a modern writer: they all act like the most normie fucks, self-conscious of coming across as pretentious, trying incredibly hard to not seem like they think that they take their art too seriously. Is it really worth it to spend one's life alone, reading and writing at a desk? Is it truly a better life to explore your emotions as deeply as does a writer, or would it not be better to simply remain undamaged, and to pursue things like money and women?

Anyone else feel like they don't fully get literature? I mean I read a fair amount, and enjoy it, and am touched emotionally by it, and can write essays about it, and offer interpretations as to the meaning or point of the text -- but I don't feel like I have a deep theoretical understanding of how it works. With music, you can learn theory, and things just start to make sense, almost with the clarity that mahematics makes sense. But with novels, is there any sort of understanding to be had on this precise theoretical level? Is that what literary theory is for? Because in my experience theory hasn't taught me that much about literature, how it works structurally, epistemologically, etc. Would I need to take some literature classes to get this shit, or is the "understanding of literature" just the sort of unconscious feeling we get, the sensitivity to the experience --aka the shit I already have. I guess I basically just don't understand how writers come up with the stuff they do. What is considered a legitimate structure for a book and why? How do writers incorporate influences? I feel ignorant as fuck about literature even though i read pretty frequently

>have literally 0 friends who have a legitimate interest in literature or philosophy
>met no one in my entire life who has a legitimate interest in literature, the only people who come close being absolute pseuds who just brag about reading a classic book to project a cool "artistic" or "intellectual" identity
>the only means I have of connecting to literary people is through a japanese cartoon board where 99% of the posters are irritating lonely bitter cunts

Is this the typical modern literary life, boys?

Who's the Edward Hopper of literature?