/lit/ - Literature

It isn't any different from any other hedonistic activity..you realize this too late, after you've spent your life devoted to books,and by that time you have a college degree..you start teaching at the university and spreading what you know is a lie forever and ever more..most people would benefit the world by killing themselves.

Books are generally allotted a much greater range of artistic freedom since the production costs are so relatively low. Compare your average Sundance film to your summer blockbuster if you don't understand my point: the more money you spend on something, the more conservative you have to be with your content, since you have to try to at least recoup the money you spent.

Writing is the easiest and cheapest form of artistic expression, which allows it the most freedom of expression. Writers can do things that you would never even comprehend to be possible in other forms of media.

>>1707928
your'e a faggot

To express something is to conserve it's virtue and take away it's terror. Fields are greener in their description than in theiir actual greeness. Flowers, if described with phrases that define them in the air of the imagination, will have colours with a durability not found in cellular life.
What moves lives. What is said endures. There's nothing in life that's less real for having been well described. Small-minded critics point out that such-and-such poem, with it's protracted cadences, in the end says merely that it's a nice day. But to say it's a nice day is difficult, and the nice day itself passes on. It's up to us to conserve the nice day in a wordy, florid memory, sprinkling new flowers and new stars over the fields and skies of the empty, fleeting outer world.

Fernando Pessoa

>>1707949
Holy fuck I want to read this guy. Suggestions?

>>1707953
His poetry translated into English sucks cocks.

>>1707953

I've only read The Book of Disquiet, although I don't believe there is much more than that available unfortunately. I think you'd like him. I could post you a good mobi ebook if you'd like?

Fiction makes you an interesting person. Knowledge is cool and all but if you have no means to apply it...

>>1707968
Don't read e-books, but I appreciate the rec.

It's 100% true. Fiction isn't much better than watching a television show or a movie. The only redeeming quality it has is that it can fit more details and thoughts into it because it's not constricted to two hours/40 minutes.

I learned a lot from reading scifi and historical fiction but nothing that I couldn't have learned watching a good TV show about the same topic.

Humans are a bunch of idiots walking around doing hedonistic things, nothing really has tangible value, even 'work' becomes a problematic counter-point since all it does is create hedonistic devices and give people the paper money to buy into hedonism. Plus, there's a vague, thin line between art and work, or even pleasure and effort. Art can become work, and vice verse.

As subversive as you wish to be, you still rub your dick at night and cum on into your palm, and you're not thinking about anything incredibly mentally stimulating when it happens.

Problem?

Also, if the argument is "well, I'm saying this because others tout it as ___", well, it's definitely more mentally stimulating than other forms of art, since it's up to us to create and receive everything. Plus, the breadth of what's allowed to be expressed is greater, thus is definitely more practical and contains more knowledge volume. Also, because of this, there's naturally less of a focus on profit and product, not everything is run through a super rigorous rubrick of "should this corporate big wig waste his precious crack money on this?"

>>1707977
>I can learn the same things from watching Star Trek or Babylon 5 that I can learn from reading Asimov or LeGuin.

I remember during school I would read big fiction books during class and the teachers wouldn't bother me because they thought I was doing it because the stuff they were teaching me was boring because to easy for me. In truth I was just escaping reality in those books and never got above average grades in any of my classes.

Or maybe they thought it's better when boys read during their classes instead of creating trouble when they're bored.

Reading exercises the creation of abstract thoughts and purely mental structures. By reading you are teaching your brain to work on a level above the most basic day to day one.

>>1707976

In that case I strongly suggest you go to the library or book store and get The Book of Disquiet. Pessoa was a man apart.

>>1707977
>I, Robot the movie and I, Robot the book contain the same story and theme.

>>1707949
>writing is more vivid than real life

congratulations faggot writer, I just shortened your flowery bullshit by about a million words and said the exact same thing

this is why literature sucks and OP is 100% correct. literature is a hedonistic practice and unnecessary for a well-rounded education. it is entirely possible to become knowledgeable in the hard sciences and philosophy without having read a page of literature, but people who stake their careers on the validity of literature spread the lie that it is important, and the younger generations of hipsters eat that shit up until they realize the same thing but by then it's too late and thus the vicious cycle continues as according to >>1707928

I am a published author and I have enough money to live the rest of my life without ever having to work. the more I write, and the more I see novels as auxiliary. writing is more of a hobby for me now that makes money, and although I'd never compromise my artistic integrity, it's not something I take very seriously anymore. I honestly wouldn't give a shit if I woke up tomorrow and every novel, poem, play, etc. burst into flames and every ebook file corrupted.

it might even be a breath of fresh air for people who want to actually create something new instead of leaning on references and ideas of old to appear deep and edgy or intellectual

>>1707993
Sorry. Forgot
>mfw

>>1707993

>writing is more vivid than real life

I feel sorry for you if that's all you took from that quote.

>>1707977
>If I want a well-thought out exploration of human experience set in a realistically depicted but unrealistically foreign locale, I can read Philip K. Dick, or I can watch Chronicles of Riddick.

>>1708000
cool story foe

>>1707905
>It's not like you learn all that much by reading [fiction]
Most of the time, the vast majority of people reads for pleasure.
>I don't really understand how it's objectively so much greater than a movie or TV show
That depends on your imagination.

I wonder why everyone doesn't play chess

>>1707949
Fiction still seems pretty pointless and gay even with this guy's description.

>>1708003
>completely miss his point

>pick a classic book and a shit movie to strawman the point

>>1708021
because starving kids in ethiopia can't afford chess sets

>>1708044
Yeah, I know, I was just being a dick, but for the most part this is kind of a flawed idea, and it has to do with movies and TV shows pandering to audience, not any inherent virtue of a medium.
Solaris is a pretty great sci-fi flick and has some depth to it. Gattaca I think is or was sorely underrated.

>mfw this entire thread

>>1708053
I'm just gonna pretend that you meant 1972's Solaris.

OP's whole question is such a mish-mash of mistaken perspectives, it's unreal.

>But it seems to me that its just a bunch of stuff that happens
Yes that is typically what constitutes a 'story' whether it be in literary fiction or a film

>It's not like you learn all that much by reading it
it's not like you learn all that much by playing a game of football either.

>I don't really understand how it's objectively so much greater than a movie or TV show in terms of telling a story
"in terms of telling a story" is the key word phrase here. If you can't read, a verbal or image-based medium is going to be a lot more good to you than a textually based medium. Maybe reading strains your fucking eyes so you prefer to listen or watch, I don't know. Moot fucking point, there's nothing that makes one medium better than another unless you consider it as part of some relative end. The relative end is the tricky part for objectivity, not anything you've said.

>So what do you get out of it? Just pleasure? If that's the case, I don't see how it's different from any other hedonistic activity.
I like how you say "just" pleasure as though there has ever been anything more to any activity ever. That is what all healthy human activity amounts to, deferred or immediate. I study so that I can become wealthy or learned, which will make the conditions of my life better. You're thinking of pleasure too narrowly, as 'gratification'.

Now, let's look at this one again
>I don't see how it's different from any other hedonistic activity.
It's different from football playing because it's got a different set of rules which constitute it as an activity
It's different from film watching because it's got a different set of rules which constitute it as an activity
It's different from video gaming because it's got a different set of rules which constitute it as an activity
WHAT A REVELATION

>What's the point in reading fiction?

It's a hobby.

/thread

Hello, OP troll. Go back to your thread.

>>>/v/92625744

>>1708071
I did mean the 1972 version and I knew you were gonna go there you fucking pedant.

>>1707993
>complain text is too long
>jammer on for longer

>>1708080
Hey! D&E Being reasonable! That's something you don't see every day.

Also, you have to notice the "in terms of telling a story". A movie and a book, both tell a story, but there's a series of possibilities and resources that make them shine in different ways.
For example, Lovecraft's "It was so horrible and wrong that just by glancing it your mind was destroyed" couldn't ever work on a film. On the other hand, Russian Ark uses the possibility of filming the whole movie in one shot to create a special way of seeing the story.

Tl;dr Books =/= Movies

>>1708089
I love you too, sweetie.

reading books is far more personal than watching movies. while reading, you essentially make up the voices and visualizations of the situations in your head. your mind filters through your head, incorporating yourself into the story.

movies on the other hand are far less personal. you directly see the people, their actions, and the world that they're in. it's much more of an instant gratification. anyone can watch a movie, but not everyone has the imagination to read.

when you see the point you'll see it.

>>1708115
Taking over what you wrote I would like to add some stuff:

· The more you read the stronger your imagination gets. You learn to imagine more and better. This is a reason why reading is good for you.

· A good movie can be as mentally stimulating as a good book and a popcorn movie can be as instant gratification as a summer book. It's just that people are used to movie = Michael Bay

There used to be no TV or radio, the only way to get entertainment was through storytelling. Books was the progression of this as literacy rates went up.

Books, or written language, is a media for transferring thoughts. Whether those are for entertainment or for academical purposes or whatever. Fiction I suppose you could call entertainment, but that doesn't mean it can't be thought-provoking or change the way people think, it is probably more likely to than an academic text on the same topic.

strictly separating from a "hedonistic" activity any other qualities is silly, and implies to some extent that only things that are not enjoyable can be virtuous.

In other words, you are missing a lot.

When you say the retarded shit, you'll say it.

>>1708122

bland bullshit, wouldn't expect more from a boring lesbian bookworm no-personality piece of shit loser

>what am I missing?

Life?

wouldn't expect a pig to jump even when presented with a fine trampoline

>>1708162
>bookworm
hey just because you are too low level to appreciate books doesn't mean other people etc.

because its fun

Because putting words to things changes the reality of things, and reading those things changes them further still, and this, in essence, is what civilisation is. Literature is the epitome of civilisation and humanity. It's a dream.

Camus put it better than I ever could when he said that truth, like light, blinds and that untruth is a beautiful dusk which enhances everything.

>>1708266
>Camus put it better than I ever could
Don't sell yourself short Truman

David Foster Wallace once said that great literature makes you feel less alone. Essentially I believe that's true. It's why books like Catcher in the Rye, The Brothers Karamazov, Les Miserables, and even Harry Potter have their followings. In their pages you see something of humanity that, in one way or another, you can relate back to yourself, be it in the ideals expressed by the writer or the sorrows suffered by the characters; literature is just a way of temporarily lifting an individual from his own misery, and perhaps promising him as well that things, though bleak, can get better.

Beyond that I don't fight tooth and nail against popular literature, nor do I try and convince others that the classics of the past are the only books worth reading. In the end, you read because you enjoy it, and along the way you might derive from it a little more than just entertainment.

My two pennies.

>But it seems to me that its just a bunch of stuff that happens.
Much like life itself, don't you think?

>>1707993
>I am a published author

Fanfiction.net is not a legitimate form of publication.