/lit/ - Literature

Is there an argument here?

I think you answered your own question.

I would like to add to that the way High School English is set up likely turns people off reading.

People are genuinely too stupid to understand a lot of good literature. It's why harry potter and twilight are so popular.

I nailed it? Me? Sunhawk? Does this mean I'm intelligent now, or just I just get lucky?

>got lucky

I want to go out with Sunhawk.

>>1974457

Come to my town in England, and you can. I never get any action, oh dear. :(

"regular" people haves friends and jobs, they don't have time to read all day and post on 4chan.

the longer tripfags post on a board, the more creepy and depressed they make themselves out to be

Hard-mode book-reading requires the use of higher brain functions, and a lot of patience. If you don't train that I would imagine it's the same feeling as going to the gym and having to play with the 20 lb. weights while the real men are doing epic squats and chatting about Joyce and Conrad.

That was a thought which I'm not particularly attached to, but one that I do strongly hold is that people generally follow the path of least resistance. If you want entertainment, what are you going to do, watch a movie or read? There are obviously a few popular mass-market books out there but most books (rightly) bury the entertaining turns of the plot in dozens of pages each of character development and psuedophilosophical rambling.

>>1974446

And The Bible, don't forget that. Along with every other religious text.

>>1974446
I don't think so. I don't think people who do read tend to be much smarter. I think that most modern forms of entertainment have shortened people's attention spans and discouraged them from reading, but I think that if attention spans were to rise reading would drastically increase as well.

>>1974433
Books are total timesinks. Adapting an 800 page novel into a 2 hour movie is what i would refer to as hard-core efficiency. Most people aren't able to remember the name of any of the main characters the moment they leave the theater. All they understand is the basic plot and "that cool moment" and "that thing that exploded". People see reading as using dial-up when others are using broadband.

>>1974505

That post was both funny and true. WELL DONE.

as a previously avid reader and now casual as fuck I can confirm: internet and other media is the only reason. While I was a tv hater and had no internet I read as fuck but now only sometimes. It takes more effort to read, and that is enough to often choose the others instead.

Most people read, they just don't feel the need to post online about doing it in order to feel superior.

>>1974493

Most of the people that read the Bible don't really understand it, or they understand it on a very superficial level. It's a very long, diverse text with an absolute mountain of scholarship dedicated to it.

Sunhawk, are you English by ethnicity?

>>1974527

Or they were indoctrinated by their parents when they were young. Which I consider brain washing.

>>1974458
Sunhawk is also a Brit?

>>1974545
Sunhawk is retarded by ethnicity.

>>1974545

I'm British, English, and white...all at once!

Reward plz.

>>1974555

Where abouts? North East representing YO!

For me:
1) My school is demanding and that takes a great deal of time.
2) I have a partner. It wouldn't be much of a partner if we didn't do things together. Reading together doesn't really count.
3) Sleep

So lets say 8 hours for school and 8 hours for sleep. That leaves me 8 hours. 2 goes for preparing and eating food and doing the dishes or other cleaning. 1 hour goes to traveling from and to school. We're now at 5. 1 hour for general stuff like hygiene, clothing, taking care of pets and so on. I usually share like 3 hours with my gf spend on watching tv or having sex or, you know, doing stuff. So that leaves me 1 hour of my personal time. Usually I'm mortified how little that is and think that I'd rather wait till I have more time with by book. Then I sit in front of my computer.

Or something like that I don't really know. I blew these numbers out of my ass. Probably I actually have heaps of time but I'm just fucking lazy and rather do brainless shit.

>>1974552
Gotta teach em' something. All else is just a paralleled form of the same thing.

The time sinking and harsher demand compared to other media are the largest negative traits I believe.

>england
>white

>>1974554
So stupid yet i still laughed
/facepalm

>>1974433
Mostly, because reading books is a solitary activity and "average" people don't like solitude that much. You can have a book club to talk about books, but you can't really invite 10 people over for a book-reading party.

No OP, YOU are the regular people.

Somehow believing that reading makes you 'speshul kind of bootiful snowflake' only identifies the repressed retarded homosexual in you.

Its experience first and foremost that determines the quality of a person.

>>1974572

Regular people don't read.

Also, why is experience such an important thing?

>>1974572

I don't think Sunhawk's homosexuality is repressed.

>>1974572
I imagined i climbed mt.everest. Therefore, i did.

Fucking Sassenachs.

Also:
'regular' people do read, they just generally read trash.
I don't have much to contribute to this thread that you haven't already said in OP, so, yeah.

why does it even matter?

Why is that 99.99% of /lit/ tripfags are/were Brits?

>>1974572

I laughed at the Doom 3 reference.

This thread is becoming interesting, and is actually about literature. I didn't think many people would reply.

>>1974493
i know you're trolling but seriously, hard as it is for you namefags, don't be an asshole.

>>1974610
it's not his fault you beleive in fairytales

As an almost complete non-reader (clicked /lit/ by mistake, meant to click /mu/), I'll answer your question from my perspective. Here's a short list of the biggest reasons I don't really read

>1. Work
I work about 60 hours a week on average. Because I have to wake up early for work and often have other obligations in the evenings, such as getting to the gym, running errands, doing laundry, keeping my place clean, and maintaining relationships with friends, I just don't have that much time to read during the week. Sure I could read a book for 30-45 minutes, every other night, but that wouldn't be very engaging to me.
>2. Social Life/Other hobbies
I like hanging out with other people, so I spend a lot of my free time on weekends hanging out with friends. Other hobbies such as cooking, rock-climbing, and playing music take up a lot of my weekend time when I'm not with friends.
>3. Entertainment Value
Simply put, heavy "good" literature is not very interesting to me. I deal with enough problems in my everyday life as is; I don't need to invest 60 hours reading and re-reading "As I Lay Dying" to remind myself that death is inevitable and people are selfish. IMO reading should be, as all hobbies, a pleasant escape, not a weighty, heady reflection on the more complex and (often) unattractive aspects of human existence. So frankly, when I do get time to read I'd rather spend it with G.R.R. Martin or even a Harry Potter book than The Brothers Karamazov or Ulysses. If that means I'm a plebeian then so be it, I guess.

TL:DR I don't read because work, social life, other hobbies, and "real" books aren't fun.

>>1974620
trolling used to be skillful

>>1974516
My adolescence full of reading a ton because I have no friends has been replaced with sitting around on IM, trying to make conversation with online friends, and often failing.

But I don't want to step away from the computer in case I miss some sort of awesome potential conversation.

Sucks though. I keep buying books that I never read.

>>1974598
When Britain first, at Heaven's command
Arose from out the azure main;
This was the charter of the land,
And guardian angels sang this strain:
"Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:
"Britons never will be slaves."

The nations, not so blest as thee,
Must, in their turns, to tyrants fall;
While thou shalt flourish great and free,
The dread and envy of them all.
"Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:
"Britons never will be slaves."

Still more majestic shalt thou rise,
More dreadful, from each foreign stroke;
As the loud blast that tears the skies,
Serves but to root thy native oak.
"Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:
"Britons never will be slaves."

Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame:
All their attempts to bend thee down,
Will but arouse thy generous flame;
But work their woe, and thy renown.
"Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:
"Britons never will be slaves."

To thee belongs the rural reign;
Thy cities shall with commerce shine:
All thine shall be the subject main,
And every shore it circles thine.
"Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:
"Britons never will be slaves."

The Muses, still with freedom found,
Shall to thy happy coast repair;
Blest Isle! With matchless beauty crown'd,
And manly hearts to guard the fair.
"Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:
"Britons never will be slaves."

>>1974437
>>1974434
You guys are idiots.

>>1974648
i'm not trolling

you're just a butthurt christfag

>>1974561
If I were with someone and we had similar taste in books I think it would be really nice to take turns reading something to each other instead of TV.

Also, possible for books while in transit: audiobooks.

>>1974658
If you're not trolling and you're not older than 16 I actually feel kinda bad for you.

>>1974660
>appeal to maturity
you're the one who's 16

also
>everyone older than 16 has to beleive in god because it's the grown up thing to do
retard

>>1974661
I fail to see where anybody brought up anything about believing in God. Also, cool insult.

Normal people past the age of 30 read, maybe you've just been hanging out with teenagers?

For people of all ages, however, reading takes up a large amount of time. Avid readers tend to get a lot of their reading done in small bursts, whenever they have a moment free in the middle of the day, such as when commuting by train, or having lunch. Young students have all kinds of little bits of downtime, but as you get older, it boils down to a clear division between time for work and your other responsibilities, and your free time.

You almost have to be somewhat of a loner to even get these times alone, or your read on the train will be interrupted by a bored friend who's texting you, and you'll probably be eating lunch with your coworkers as well.

Even if you do have these little opportunities to read with nothing much better to do, it takes quite a bit of effort to read a tiny bit of a story, usually in a public, noisy environment, trying to quickly remember the current context before your moment alone quickly ends and life forces you to immediately stop. If you enjoy the book you're reading, you won't even think twice about it. Otherwise, it'll feel like more trouble than it's worth, and you'll end up either hating the book or just give up on reading like that in general.

>>1974662
god and religion go hand in hand

don't try to wiggle your way out of the argument

I was an avid reader as a kid, always trying to sneak in a chapter or two whenever I could get away with it. I haven't read a work of fiction that wasn't required for a course since high school. Why? Because I lost all those little bits of downtime as I grew older, and discovered that when it came down to spending my larger, "true" chunks of free time, I got more enjoyment out of video games, the internet, and (god forbid) friends without trying to shoehorn a novel in there.

When you don't have much free time to spare, it's important that your activity takes as little an amount of time to get into as possible. When those periods of free time are far apart, from once a day at best, and every weekend at worst, it's very important that your activity requires little continuity between sessions, that you aren't required to either remember what you were having fun with on Saturday for the whole week, or have to figure out what the hell is going on every time you start. Novels happen to be horrible in both of these regards.

>>1974667
>somewhat of a loner
This is a big pet peeve. Please choose one of either 'somewhat' or 'something of a'.

people are put off by "serious" reading because psuedointellectuals (i.e. high school english teachers and most of /lit/) peer pressure them into the old dead white male canon with no training wheels

so they jump into something they haven't researched and don't understand, then say LOL THIS SHIT IS BORING and at best go back to harry potter, at worst post "reading iz 4 nurdz" on facebook

this is YOUR fault

>>1974575

half the people I see on the subway every day are reading. you must be in high school (or in some incredibly redneck town).

>>1974673

Not to mention when I had facebook, I saw a connection amongst everyone where they listed "LOL Can't read" and they had Adam Sandler listed in their favourite movies.

>>1974668
The original statement was about the Bible (and every other religious text) not being good literature, which is a pretty ignorant thing to say. I am not religious nor do I believe in God but I recognise this. My thing about saying I hope you're not older than 16 was to do with the fact that this type of ignorant shit is what 15 year old youtube atheists spout.

>mfw I play vidiogames, read books, write some short stories and listen to rare music.

My tastes are better than yours

>>1974656
top poem

I read books,watch tv and play video games and refuse to like any music post-1999 ALSO. we are not as special as you people like to think.

>>1974742
>watching TV past 14

>>1974749

I don't bother with TV, It's shit like The Big Bang Theory and 2.5 Men that turned me to anime. I only keep up with these shows:
Dexter
Supernatural
Breaking Bad

>>1974758
>anime
>dexter past season one
>supernatural

lol

>>1974765

Season 4 was epic, I understand the hate 5 gets though.

>>1974742
>not listening to post-1999 music
You sound like a hardcore faggot.

>>1974656
Jingoistic foo

>>1974769
actually my favorite is season 2 but I can see why people hate on the following seasons

>>1974489
How can one train?

People consider books over 500 pages to be long?
Oh dear.

Why gyms are scary for foreveralone? As a foreveralone I disagree with your claim- gyms are very personal-focused and has nothing to do with interrelations, unless you're a faggot who works out to satisfy someone who isn't yourself.

>>1974936
As a scrawny guy, I can say going to the gym alone is pretty scary. I always feel awkward if I am using a machine someone else is probably waiting for and they see that I can barely lift 30 pounds or whatever.

>>1974943

Sounds like you have OCD man, I'm sorry for you but you can't be a representative example.

>>1974433

fear of ending up posting on /lit/

>>1974964
You are out of touch brother. Most out of shape people have anxiety about going to gyms.

>>1974936
>Why gyms are scary for foreveralone?

Probably because of all the muscley people who they're afraid will beat them up

You're not superior to other people because of your larger vocabulary, familiarity with dead author's thoughts on life, or amount of books read.
The arrogance of the people posting on this board makes me angry. I really wish the people here would stop talking with such threatening tones. It's like they're trying to shit all over the people that post here.

People enjoy submitting their will and removing themselves from their body. They do this because being in their bodies reminds them that they're going to die. This fear of death is what drives 99% of 'regular peoples' decisions. They escape this fear through entertainment; they goto the movies, go out to dinner, play vidya for 6 hours, anything to stop that black, sinking mass of fear from overwhelming them. You can't really blame them for it, it is after all one of the few things every human feels.

Though reading good literature/philosophy is a form of escape/submission it has a decidely different set of operations while it's being consumed. A movie requires little to no brain power for it to be enjoyed; flashing lights and loud explosions are usually reason enough for most people to waste two hours of their lives. But the active reading and comprehension of great works of thought requires a level of mental exersion most deem extraneous or downright silly. The dedication required for absorbing great swaths of literature is really the sign of a masochist. But it does have a nobility to it.

tl;dr Most people are slaves to the id, don't be one of them, read more books.

>>1975041
Spend a week just lurking on this board, then go to /b and try not to rage when you see how people write and attempt to reason. If /lit as a general rule is pretentious, at least it's somewhat deserved.

Lots of people read, they just aren't like really good readers and shit.
It just depends on your taste, you might be more fond of books but have no knowledge of movies and just watch casual shit, while someone might love movies and know everything about them.

A lot of people don't have the time to sustain an interest in too many mediums, so they might know a lot about games or alchohol or food or movies or TV or books. Or they might be a jack of a few trades or whatever.

I know you're an idiot when it comes to lots of things. Everything has an entry-level/casual userbase and a core one. Could just be fucking mountain biking or guns, doesn't matter. Just depends on what interests you.

From my experiences - working in a book store chain - 'regular' people read. Though don't read David Foster Wallace nor Thomas Pynchon, they read mass market things that meet their tastes.

They won't read as much as us, and they don't read the same titles we do - but it is a fallacy to think that 'regular' people don't read.

Workingclassbro here, a lot of people keep saying regular people read, this is not the case with the working class.

>>1975141

To uniformally say that working class people dont read is wrong in my opinion - working class bro here too. It may be Katie Price's new fiction or a celeb biography, but in my area the people I know have all attempted to read. In my store as well a lot of what would be described as 'chavs' come in after books.

>>1975134

Is me again btw.

Here's what I think:

Everyone else is just a normal mindless plebeian like in 1984 and I know that something is wrong with the world, so I read because it will make me smarter (I'm pretty smart to begin with, though).

I'm an individual.

I do all of my reading in the bathroom. Usually when I'm dropping the kids off at the pool, but sometimes when I'm just chillin' in the bath tub.

The problem is that most "readers" are the pretentious dipshits who think that there's a hidden message that has to be deciphered in books, and books that don't have such a deep meaning are trash. On the other hand, you have fat retards who read Twilight and Harry Potter.

tl;dr "readers" are faggots and nobody wants to be associated with them.

It's sad to see that some will never understand literature, or art for that matter.

Some people are just not intelligent enough. I feel incredibly sad about that sometimes.

>>1975376

I bet the really intelligent people are sad that you're not too clever

>>1975173
I love this attitude, that reading ANYTHING automatically makes you intelligent. Like when people brag about watching movies with subtitles.

>>1975376
Why feel sad for the unintelligent? They're much happier people for it.

Why wouldn't you choose instant gratification? Video games give me constant rewards, interaction and challenge.

Books don't give you shit. It's all just synthetic happiness because you spent 10 minutes deciphering Joyce's poetic bullshit and so assume it must be some higher level of happiness. Well it isn't, so fuck off.

reading actually requires effort and interpretation

with television, all you have to do is look at it.

with music, all you have to do is listen.

I'm very guilty of the first one.

>>1975451

>you are a shallow music listener
> you can bullshit television and interpret it just like you can with film and literature

I agree with you actually on T.V but, I am being a cunt-face

>>1975408
No, what makes you happy is dealing with stuff that's challenging yet achievable.

It's not being intelligent that makes you unhappy, it's either wallowing in tasks that are too easy for your or reaching too hard to deal with problems that are beyond your intelligence.

About the worst possible thing is getting a degree in philosophy and then working at Starbucks. Now your day job is a set of menial chores and your "higher pursuits" are unanswerable questions. It's like getting spit roasted by Satan and a homeless guy.