/lit/ - Literature

>>13109212
Read Dazai

Shame is a spook, especially in this hypersensitive era. At some point even if you have deeply hurt someone it’s their responsibility to take care of their own trauma. That’s the tragedy of the human condition. Did you hear me? I SAID THAT’S THE TRAGEDY IF THE HUMAN CONDITION SO INTERNALIZE THIS AS SOMETHING BEYOND A SHALLOW PLEASANTRY AND UPHOLD IT FOR THE TRUTH IT IS. TRY AND BE A GOOD PERSON BUT ALSO FUCK THE PAST FOREVER. MAN MUST GO BEYOND THESE PETTY ENTANGLEMENTS TO TRANSCEND INTO AN ARTIST WORTHY OF APPROVAL AND APPRAISAL OF THE OTHER PEOPLE ON EARTH.

>>13109245
Why, specifically?

I know he was in a suicide pact which he survived.

So this happened a few days ago and I’m still not sure I’m 100% ready to tell the story but here goes.

I’ve been with my girlfriend for about a year and I already know she is the love of my life. She’s perfect for me. We’re perfect for eachother. We’re getting ready to move in with eachother and I want nothing more than to start a family with her and spend the rest of my life with her.

We went on a short vacation last week and when we returned she gave me her phone to look at some photos from the trip.

She went to the bathroom while I had her phone, and as I was scrolling through the pictures it kind of jumped to a period that was about a year and a half ago. If you have an iPhone you know what I’m talking about, you scroll a little bit too fast and all of a sudden you’re back at the start of the photo album. It’s annoying as hell.

But some photos caught my eye. Some photos that I really shouldn’t be seeing, of her and a previous boyfriend.

There she is, the love of my life, TRYING to get her mouth around the biggest dick I’ve ever seen in my life. I’ve watched porn - a lot. I’ve never seen a dick like this. I’m talking bigger than 2 coke cans stacked on top of eachother. Longer and thicker. As far as I could tell she was unable to get her teeth around it.

I could see another thumbnail of her comparing the size of his dick to her forearm with a look of wonder and glee on her face.

I closed the pictures and I’ve acted like nothing has happened, but I cannot get these images out of my mind. I’ve never been self-conscious about my dick size - in fact if you believe the stats I’m significantly above average, but this has destroyed my self esteem.

We haven’t had sex since. I can’t concentrate on my work. I just wish I had never seen those damn pictures.

TL;DR accidentally saw some pictures of the love of my life sucking the biggest dick on earth and my stupid male ego is destroyed

>>13109212
Ironically posting Wallace? I mean...we’re all flawed and hurtful and while it’s a bit different if you’ve committed some serious crimes, I’d generally say most people have felt this way.

More realistically, if you don’t want the wrong people to find you, I highly suggest taking up a pen name. Given that getting published and making general connections in the lit world doesn’t require you to physically meet people (unless you’re a book seller or in publishing), I’d say it wouldn’t be too hard to invent a new self and go from there. Plenty of sites you submit to won’t know the difference and if you’re short online stuff can get some attention, maybe you can belt something bigger.

>>13109437
I thought it was fitting considering the fact he is perceived as a sort of contemporary moral teacher while also being condemned more recently for what was exposed in the biography.

>>13109453
Right. I think most people who started digging into him discovered a lot of that stuff in the aughts, but it took a while for people to see him as a real person with real failings. I guess I just see that as your answer. Anger, weakness, all those emotions are human, even if they aren’t healthy. I don’t think having done something awful means you can’t be right or do something really great.

>>13109288
His writing is a drawn out confession of all his sins, his guilty feelings and deficiencies of character. Read it and you'll understand.

>>13109288
anybody feeling shame ought read no longer human. it explains the impurity of man well.

>>13109492
>>13109495
But should we respect Dazai for this? Or should we use his example as something to strive not to become?

I'm reading a book right now called In Defence of Reason, which inspired John Edward Williams (author of Stoner). It's literary theory and the author really dislikes sentimental, highly personal writing which relies heavily on self-expression and autobiography. I read it and understand why he feels this way and feels ashamed of my own writing which is like this. It's also very vulnerable to express yourself in this way, and I think maybe it's correct for writers to be more detached, analytical and refuse to allow their personal lives to feature so heavily in their writing.

>>13109212
Does anyone have a clean conscience? Your question is a stupid one

>>13109555
I don't know, do they?

I know people my age who are friendly, outgoing, popular, well-balanced mentally, and so on. The worst I can imagine them having done is maybe gossiped about someone as a teenager or something.

>>13109533
Dazai is the best writer who ever lived. Why do you want literature to be reasonable and not personal? The purpose is for two people to talk to each other honestly, for once in their entire lives--the author and the reader--so we can understand each other as humans and feel we share the same heart after all.

Reasoned, sterile, impersonal writing is entirely pointless. If you felt like a monster and you never read anyone like Dazai who confessed to being a monster, you'd get in such a despair you'd kill yourself for the shame of it.

>>13109559
Then you aren’t very imaginative. As Celine once wrote “His shirt was too clean for him to truly be trusted”

>>13109834
What Celine book is that from?

>>13109212
The best writers are outcasts. You are just extremely critical of yourself, because your judging from a self percieved higher moral ground than the rest of the masses, whom you also paradoxically feel yourself superior of.

>>13109954
It isn't the case of feeling superior to anybody, I just think that to be someone who writes in favour of virtue, and of beauty, and who empathizes with characters etc, then readers will expect the writer himself surely to be someone they can place their trust in. It's why aspiring politicians for example are so closely mentored from a young age so they avoid scandal or doing anything that could blight their careers.

>>13109404
Fuck.

I'm sorry, bro. That's enough to seriously fuck with the mind of any man. Maybe just convince yourself it never happened?

>>13109533
Just do whatever you feel is right. There's no sense in trying to accommodate some arbitrary sense of 'rightness'.
If you hate self-referential, sentimental writing -don't write like that. If sentimental writing is what you're naturally disposed to, don't let some arbitrary literary imperative stop you.

>>13110150
Thank you. My main question is about one's conscience, especially as a writer, which to my mind is sort of like putting yourself forward not as a perfect and faultless individual, but at least as the kind of person your potential reading audience can trust, like, and want to take the time to read the work of - not someone whose character they distrust and who are morally quiestionable.

>>13109868
Journey to the end of the night

>>13110076
its a reddit meme post, anon.

>>13110610
y'know, i suspected this, but was too lazy to run it through the search engine

fuck me i'm a cornball

>>13109981
You are retardedly naive, how fucking old are you?

>>13109404
if she chooses to be with you, then she values you for more than your dick size and you shouldn't be inse-
>>13110610
fuck

>>13109404
redditspacing is real