/lit/ - Literature

>>10404831
the only way to know is if you humble yourself to the texts and derive some enjoyment from literature

>>10404839
I have just finished a book on the Trojan war and will start the Illiad tonight, provided I can get out of dinner with my wife, who is a real chore.

My question, I suppose, has more to do with Time. Given the breadth of the western canon, and the restrictions on my time, I do wonder if this is even a road worth following, or if I’ll end up with some vague, topical understanding of a variety of literatures in a way that amounts very little “understanding” of its structure, function, history, etc.

No you're fine. Although I've met some people who just can't into reading because they've never done it outside of school, but if you're STEM you should have a baseline competence that they lack

>>10404861
What if I only speak English, and a little bit of Spanish? I considered hiring a German tutor for weekends. That said, my mental faculties are rapidly deteriorating. I can’t even remember what I had for lunch yesterday.

>>10404854
You mention wanting to become as literary as a writer like James Joyce, yet when you type this is sounds like you aspire to be Harold Bloom.

Do you want to be on par with professional producers of literature or professional consumers of literature? Sounds like the latter to me.

Sounds like you want to sound educated and bourgeois to your learned friends. You'll do well to pick up a textbook and start copying your favorite ivory tower faggot.

Start with the Greeks, push through it, and then, once finished, read any classic and be overwhelmed with emotion.

>>10404929
Thank you this is the approach I plan to take.

>>10404912
No need for this vitriol.

>>10404831
My grandfather was a STEM dude who got into humanities at a later age.

He did fine.

I'm the opposite.

I'm doing fine.

You'll be fine.

The fact that you even care about being a polymath is already a good sign.

>>10404877
>What if I only speak English, and a little bit of Spanish? I considered hiring a German tutor for weekends. That said, my mental faculties are rapidly deteriorating. I can’t even remember what I had for lunch yesterday.

are you taking drugs, or just aging that your memory is worsening?

>>10405142
Aging, unfortunately. Yesterday I went to an Italian restaurant for lunch. When I finished my meal, I left the restaurant and stood outside the restaurant staring at the sign, repeating the name in my head.

When I got home, all I remembered was that it started with a C.

>>10405173
How old are you.

I've been having some memory problems myself and I am young. It's becoming neccessary to use mnemonics =, only way to make things stick, look it up.

>>10404831
What do you mean you had no interest, you never saw pictures or stories you like?
Do you ever watch tv?

>>10405202
I am thirty years old. It started when I was 25. I forget text almost immediately, but recall images (faces, locations, etc) supremely well.

>>10405207
I don’t watch a lot of TV, though sometimes I’ll watch a documentary while eating dinner.

I just want interested. I went to catholic school, bible study, etc., and then checked out. Never read fiction, just articles or analyses of the texts to get by.

Bronze Age, The Bible in multiple versions, assorted religious texts, Greeks pre-Hellenistic, Romans in Augustan & Republic & Late Antiquity, Christian & Viking Medieval, Baroque, 19th century Russians, Great American Novels, collected underground comics, Minecraft fanfiction

>>10405212
Dude, FUCK.

I DO NOT WANT TO GET OLDER REEEEEEE

>>10405212
Then read Montaigne, who had a horrible memory. Memory's solid for trivia and multiple guess, but has little to do with active thinking or the ability to make connections. The best writers, poets begin with a book saturated empty head. (Ashbery wrote an essay about this). In other words read tons then write. At the moment of need your brain will come through. It always does.

>>10404831
it is too late, old man
leave the literary world to the brave and young souls such as myself

>>10405219
That sounds sad. Just trapped in reality, never having the company of a wide imagination.

>>10406277
IT is sad. But more than that, I lament that I’m missing out on an entire sphere of knowledge.

You don't have to start with serious literature. If you really haven't read before, you should see the fun of it first. You could start with classic short stories like Sherlock or Lovecraft. Appreciating the ideas in stories is much more than just getting metaphors or allusions.

>>10406934
But then I’ll just be wasting MORE time understanding what literature is about.

>>10404987
I would recommend the Art of Fiction by David Lodge after reading your first book or two and establishing a habit of reading. It will help you appreciate the subtleties of literature more so you know what you've been missing and what kind of things you should look for to enhance your reading experience.

>>10405212
tfw 25 right now
tfw no dreams fulfilled
tfw smoke too much pot

>>10404831
If you're pressed for time and still want to get into some classics, audiobooks. I've listened to Moby Dick, Swiss Family Robinson, Gulliver's Travels, Ayn Rand and many others along those lines which would have taken me months to finish(if I stayed interested at all.) Other classics like Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, etc I prefer to read in paper copy so I can show them off at coffee shops oc.

>>10408478
If drugs are hindering your goals, stop doing drugs.

>>10408360
I always try to read a short story by a classic author before attempting their more difficult works, especially one from their early days of writing. SS are only like 50-100 pages and take just a couple hours to finish.

>>10408525
This is a great idea. I’m halfway through the collected stories of Franz Kafka. I saw them at the book shop last night and couldn’t resist purchasing. The longest thus far has been about 40 pages or so (Metamorphosis). This is great advice. I will go on to the trial after.

Can you recommend any anthologies of short Greek literature? I’m sure they’re more plays and poems than anything but you know what I mean. Thx

>>10408508
Thanks. Should I use Librivox or do you recommend another app?

>>10408360
>calling sherlock holmes a waste of time
What do you do for fun? Reading is probably more productive than that.

>>10404877
>had for lunch yesterday
Lolwut? At no point in my life have I regularly recalled what I had for lunch yesterday, and I have a chem eng degree.

>>10408478
Lol just stop smoking weed man. Or save it for super special occasions with mates. Like once a month or something. don't smoke by yourself, the brain fog is real and the fact it stays in your system for up to a month sketches me out.

I stopped and feel a lot less lethargic, motivated and less emotionally blunted

>>10404831
Oldfag Bump

>>10408478
put down the blunt and pick up some adderall
it made my small braine become the bigge braine

>>10404831
Aristotle said "Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man." It's too late, it was always too late. You can't become "patrician" because you never were. You'll toil with machines for someone else until you die. You can read some books if you want, we allow that. You can even pretend to understand them. Maybe write one of your own, although you'd be better programming a computer to do it for you.

>>10411182
>Frogposter settles nature/nurture debate once and for all.

>>10411227
You can struggle against your nature, you can even gain the semblance of having overcome it, but you can never truly change.

>>10411266
Why not?

>>10411906
He doesn’t know. Nobody here knows anything.

>>10405212
Here's a website for you to recall info in the future. Spend some time on it.

https://artofmemory.com/wiki/Main_Page

>>10413327
OH this is incredible, thanks anon

>>10404831
>>10404839
Why can't we have more sincere and sober threads like this?

>>10404912
The bitterness and projection in this post is palpable.

why does it feel like you're lying to us

You can start reading literature by the time you learn how to read or right before dying, the only things that matters is the enjoyment of getting to see people express theirselves in the most various ways and getting the lessons from it by empathy. If you are just willing to prove to yourself and to others that you are a "patrician", then you'll just get bored. If that's not the case, just follow what you like, take your own time to digest books, and keep it at your own pace.
Art isn't about just understanding, if you aren't feeling anything and gives no fucks about it, don't even waste your time, because sometimes it isn't even made to be understood.
sorry for the poor english btw, i'm feeling uneasy about it.

In my honest opinion, I'd start with reading short story collections.

>>10415344
he is lying, he demonstrated that in the first few posts, no one should help him at all

>>10417149
What? I’m not lying at all. What’s with the cynicism?

>>10415059
Yeah, I know. I’m alright with all the shitposts but this is nice every once in a while.

>>10415059
>>10418092
fags

>>10418417
Go away

Relax my friend. No one has enough time in the world to read all the good stuff. Even the super important stuff. As others said, starting with short stories is a good idea. Read what you like, don't stress about getting it.

>>10418087
dude go back to learning how to give people new diseases and kill them with “””medical error””” and prescribe drugs that have terrible epigenetic consequences and how you’re god’s gift to the Earth. i don’t care at all if you’re illiterate, your bosses don’t either. seriously eat shit

>>10418558
LOL. Kys

>>10418564
>kys
you first bb

>>10408478
>>10408511
>tfw 22, published twice in two different magazines, and recipient of a national short story award

i blaze the herbage daily, my dingo.
you're probably just lazy and addicted to the internet.

>>10418587
>lying on the internet
You must be very smart

>>10404912
I like the way you write.

>>10418917
samefag, go home

>>10404861
Some STEMS are utterly incompetent though....

>>10404831
If you can pick up a work by Jane Austen, read it, remember to switch off the analytic mind, think of it as a challenge to get out of the analyst/problem solver mindset, then you'll do ok

>>10419592
>if you can turn off your brain
>trap yourself in a literary psycho-sexual torture prison
>then escape with no help from man logic you are God
yeah probably

>>10419592
Why Jane Austen

>>10406142
>Ashbery wrote an essay about this
I can't find this via google

>>10408884
>not eating the same thing for lunch every single day

wew lad

>>10404831
If you weren't drawn to this in your youth, and genuinely had zero interest, why would you wanna do it now? Learned literary types are that way because they love and live the material and it brings them great joy and they feel that they must attend to it because it is important to them. This was and is not you. If you were meant to do it then you would've known early on that you must do it.

It is an obsessive sort of thing. If you don't need it then why bother? Its not like anyone's really gonna care or like you're gonna get points for it.

>>10418933
I mean i kinda like it too. we don't need it though.

>>10406142
Yeah, I'm inclined to agree with this. It's not like you're reading to collect or amass the sum words and texts of literature into some sort of resource pool that you pull from, you're not collecting materials and tools or something like that. You're just incising shapes and patterns and forms and vague concepts into your psyche. The process of reading critically changes the mind, molds it, works it out. Long after you've forgotten having had experiences they're mark is still indelibly left on you.

Need not be conscious of a change for it to be present.

>>10411155
Or just good fuckin coffee. No joke i can barely write when I'm not drunk or caffeinated.

>>10404831
Is it too late? You say you're in medicine. Volunteer to work in or just visit some geriatric facilities. Visit and talk to some actual old people and actually listen to them. Watch how they are treated like animals in a zoo by your colleagues. It might not make you learned, but it might make you wise.

>>10422234
This

Makes absolutely no sense. There are millions of things you could find passion for but have yet to imagine, whether that be because you weren’t exposed to them or they haven’t yet come into existence.

>>10415059
We're too intelligent and cultured for this.

>>10422234
Retarded