/lit/ - Literature

Probably. My parents never fucking read and all my friends care more about cars or video games. What ever though, I'd care to think. I'll probably have a career that is better than my parents could ever get and my friends will still be living with their parents.

Yes.

It is often that I've found myself at dinner with the fam , the droopy father sitting kitty corner to the perky, pent-up mother, who'd rush to my side, intent on giving my person 'huggles'. The attempt is deflected with a gimp oblong shrug, coupled with my shrieking howls, in flawless Shakespearean pentameter:

'DO NOT TOUCH ME YOU FILTHY FUCKING CA'

She pauses, horrified.

'SUAL! '

At this juncture, I'm generally given to retreating darkly to my basement, where shelved in a hue and pattern of an offset Serpinski triangle is my perpetually festering collection of dust-gathering hardbacks. I gaze at the collection; meta and non-metaphysically patrician in form and content. As I do so, I begin to feel the trouser snake emerge.

In heat, I unbury my Martin Heidegger Real Doll™ and wrap his continental lips around my throbbing member, cooing gently as his bushy liptuft tickles my pubis. Pumping furiously, I read from my perpetually open copies of Gravity's Rainbow and Infinite Jest with my left and right eyes, respectively. I stroke my braille copy of Ulysses with my right hand, guiding Heidi™ up and down with my left. I come furiously down his ravenous, hungry throat and pull out, looking deep into those soulful German eyes as we share a cigarette in post-coital bliss.

I tuck Heidi™ away and stare at my books, thinking maybe I should read one of them.

My mother shuffles into the room and pats me on the head, singing

'Hahaha, time for 4chan.

yeah. I write sometimes, and have tried getting my ma to read some. she just tells me she doesnt understand anything I'm saying

>>3223181

This.

The majority of my family thing I'm condescending and arrogant because I read / am pursuing a tertiary degree.

>>3223185
This is fucking hilarious. wtf did I just read...

I'm the only one who's going/has gone to university in my immediate family, my mother reads but it's mainly crap like Kindle free reads although she did read Les Mis quite recently and was on Sherlock Holmes last time I was home

>>3223185
fuckin a gold

>My mother only reads genre crime novels
>MFW she keeps trying to recommend them to me
>MFW she reads me excerpts that aren't funny and keeps interrupting my serious business with laughter.
>MFW I'm still 60% more casual than is acceptable by /lit/'s standards

My dad and I for my bit. We both read constantly and I think it comes from him, via DNA.

>>3223185
brav fuckin O

>>3223172
No.

>>3223172
No.

Not only is that term extremely ridiculous, you're also indicating that anyone who doesn't like what I like is by definition not as "great" as I am.

But yes some of my family members read books, but nothing special.
My mom reads some books about travelling and my girlfriend reads teenager fantasy and I think my stephmom is into "oldschool fantasy" but I haven't felt the urge yet to ask her what she means.

My mum reads Danielle Steel.

Oh well I guess it's better than 50 shades

>my father asks for stuff like Kierkegaard, Russell and Sartre for birthday present
>get him sum'o dat Kierkegaard, nigga
>he puts it on his bookshelf and never reads it
>either he realized it's way above his level or he just wanted it to appear smart
>mfw my dad is a pleb

>>3223307
My mom is currently reading 50 Shades.
How bad is this book actually?

My 13yo brother reads adventure, like Jules Verne and Tom Sawyer and shit. Guess he's in a good way.

Nope. My dad was an english lit major

I'm the only person in my entire genetic bloodline to have ever finished highschool beyond year ten.

>Everyone else in my family is insanely dumb and religious.
>Atheist.
>Educated.
>175. IQ
>Sill no qt hipster gf

>>3223314

Awful. It's fanfic origins are so obvious

>>3223185
Hey I read Confederacy of Dunces too

>brothers are both junkies
>dad only reads tom clancy and other espionage shit
>mum only reads biographies and cookbooks

Yep. All plebs.

>>3223326
>junkies
>plebs.
0/10

>>3223185
I seriously just spat out what I was drinking from laughing so hard.
>Pumping furiously, I read from my perpetually open copies of Gravity's Rainbow and Infinite Jest with my left and right eyes, respectively. I stroke my braille copy of Ulysses with my right hand, guiding Heidi™ up and down with my left

My dad writes essays and criticism for middlebrow magazines.

My mom teaches english.

Both my parents and my sister -who still lives at home (aged 24) - finish their respective nine-to-five slugs, come home for a brisk fifteen minute moan about how much they despise their jobs, before planting themselves in front of the black rectangular shrine to mediocrity for the daily 5 hour consumption of reality TV and Game shows. Their lives conform to a specific regime; wake, drive to work, suffer, drive home, consume pop-culture, sleep. The only alleviation they have from this cycle is the weekends, which they treat as two days of extended worship to said black rectangular shrine, sitting oppressively -to me at least- in the corner of the lounge.

I no longer live with them, fortunately, but visit at least once a week to converse with them in the five minute advert breaks when the trance-like spell is broken. Casual with regard to literature? Yes. Although the Television guide is eagerly consumed once a day when the fluorescent yellow highlighter pen appears to mark the evenings viewing schedule.

My dad is a highschool English teacher so he's a pretty avid reader and is familiar with most of the Classics, but these days he tends to just read crime thrillers. Good crime thrillers, but still. My mum had a degree in literature but died before I was old enough to talk books with her. She left behind a nice library, though. My love of lit is definitely not an anomaly in my family.

>>3223361
Whats your dad's favorite book?

Do you know your mother's?

Sorry to hear about that

>>3223354

I have an intelligent girlfriend who is like this and it depresses the hell out of me. Her vice is a little different--random internet browsing instead of bad TV--but everything else is the same.

I'm trying to get her into reading a little. The first book I recommended to her was Infinite Jest. I hope she reads it and sees enough of herself in it to snap out of her catatonia.

I'm the only person in my family that reads at all.

You think I'm joking? I'm not.

Not very cultured as a result. Only stuff I've read have been babby's first literature like 1984

>>3223364
I'm pretty sure my dad once told me that Under the Volcano is his favourite "literary" type book. His favourite crime writers are Ken Bruen and Andrew Vachss.

I don't know about my mum. Her collection contains a lot of Eco and Winterson.

My parents are both pretty avid readers. My brother and sister are less so than myself, but they're both still pretty good about it. We were all taught to read, read, read.

>>3223369
>>3223354
I can't stand this either

No, my dad reads quite a lot, and he's a former Stalinist too.

>>3223354
>that feel when casuals actually think deep down that watching television makes them have more of a "life"

>>3223419

What's a life?

>>3223354
>>3223420
Something people use as a cop-out argument against you

i used to think so, then i was browsing my grandpa's bookshelf... dude speaks like six languages.

>>3224046

When I tell someone they don't have a life, it means they are wasting time doing something that I feel is a waste of time or I don't like.

Pretty much. I've got an uncle who basically breathes poetry, but I don't see him much. I thought my dad was a well-read person until like sixteen, when I realized that he was just regurgitating stuff about books (all from quite a small reference pool) he'd read years and years ago.

>>3223197
>The majority of my family thing I'm condescending and arrogant because I read...

applied to me when younger as well; and a couple of family members responded to my college plans with "Oh yeah? You tryin' to be better than me?" (Why yes I am, as long as you asked.)

I myself hardly read.
I only really read the masterpieces in the sticky and not much else and ive only read like half of them.
Normally i dwell in much higher forms of art, but i still feel its the responsibility of every person to read some of them.
Most of my family doesnt read at all except my aunt who reads whatever popular pleb shit is out at the moment and my uncle whos favorite book is atlas shrugged and only really reads technical books about his profession.

>>3224062
They don't have a life I approve of wagh

>>3224089
>"Oh yeah? You tryin' to be better than me?"

I've probably had a bit of a charmed life, because I've never understood this mentality. Do family members actually oppose university on these grounds?

I'm pretty casual compared to my parents. They read all the time and own thousands of books.

>>3223369
You recommended Infinite Jest as a starting point? Shit, that's going to put her off if anything. Should start with easy reading, and work your way up. Give her Twilight or some shit like that. Apparently thats what bitches like these days.

Giving my aunt The Stranger this christmas, my mother Fear and Trembling and my father Pale Blue Dot.
Gave my aunt some Kierkegaard and got my mother Animal Farm last year. I'm educating them one Christmas at a time.

Also, I've given my uncle Ron Paul books the last 4 years. And we live in socialist republic of Denmark

My and father originally got me into my love of books, but they've both been devolving for years as their jobs consume them.

Mom is down to listening to those grocery store paperback romances on tape as she drives back and forth from work.

Dad just comes home and flips on the tube to either watch sports or some the latest tripe on The History Channel.

It's actually really sad, and sort of frightening. I hope I don't end up like them.

Everyone except my uncle. He's only 6-7 years older than me so he's a total complete bro to me. We have pretty much the same interests in everything and we share and exchange books all the time. Shit's cool yo.

>16
>Visit dad for weekend
>Need new readin' material
>Browsing his shelves
>Dostoevsky
>Joseph Conrad
>Nietzsche
>Hemingway
>Everyone that I really liked at the time
>That feel when I realize my dad and I have the same taste

>>3224236
That was a few years ago, I didn't get that point across.

My mom was an editor, which put a different spin on it than if she was just literary

Nah. I grew up in a house with close to 2000 books. My parents both read and my three siblings read as well. We're a very literate bunch.

>>3223325
haha that's what I was thinking when I read that.

>tfw pretty entry level reader, but still better than most people my age
>tfw older brother is a patrician reader and reads far more than you and far better books

>>3224138
Same anon here. Yes, in my family they did, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. An unfortunate side-effect of coming from a working-class background; some will not want you to excel as it makes them feel bad about themselves. This is one way in which the working class keeps itself "down."

However, family did not pay for my education - I used a combination of BEOG (Pell) grant and working - so I was able to do what I liked and uncle's attitudes be damned.

>>3223307
Oh my god. My mom has a fucking fetish for Steele novels.

>>3223312
>mfw this was probably an attempt for your dad to try and connect with his increasingly distant son, only to be shut down by his own shortcomings.

>no one in my family reads anything, except my brother
>he's read stuff like Dostoevsky and Wallace but won't delve deeper like i have
>no one i meet has ever read any of the books i've read
>occasionally meet a "hipster"-looking-type that claims to love Delillo, Wallace, Pynchon, etc
>on pressing, one invariably discovers that these types have read maybe one work by the author and latch on as a fashion statement
>constantly meeting people that have read maybe one Vonnegut and think it makes them a genius

i've given up talking to people about books.

>>3223197

That's not why they think you're condescending and arrogant anon.

They hold traditional values and mean well. I've only seen my mom read a few times in my life. Now she works and watches tv everyday. She keeps her life busy by constantly repairing the old apartment she bought. I tried asking her what she'll do when the apartment is done but she answered something like "oh, it'll never get done!" Maybe it's my own problem that I'm not satisfied by "just living".

>>3224323
Find better people, then. Believe it or not, there are people other than you who read books.
Also, they could genuinely have loved the one book they read.

>>3223172

Yes, PhD philosopher working on the applications of critical theory to the philosophy of science. My parents read grishom and harry potter novels. My sister has not read a book since college. Granted I don't really read fiction since I have little time to read for fun. Last time I tried I felt that it was dealing with philosophical concepts in an obscure way which the author barely understood.

My mom is a communications professor. Not really super-relevant but she's also a poet and has many poems published in tons of Canadian journals and she has her own book of essays and poems that she self-published. All her work is about women and being raped and shitty stuff like that. I only actually like a few things of hers that she's written. She reads A LOT but its mostly uber-contemporary canadian and american literature. She turned me onto David Mitchell and Carol Shields and Margaret Atwood and those kinds of folks.

My dad only reads sci-fi. Some good stuff, but he's hooked on the genre and has been his whole life. Read some good Asimov because of him.

My brother is a try-hard faggot who reads self-help books and shit like that. Thinks he's gonna get rich by "having a positive attitude" or some shit. Reads casual books like Song of Ice and Fire, star wars novelizations, etc.

Step-siblings read casual fag books.

I read whatever I feel like, which right now has been some comedy horror books (just finished John Dies at the End) and some historical fiction (finally got around to the Book of Negroes, it was alright).

tl;dr my mom is non-casual but she's a lame-ass femanist bitch most of the time.

>>3223185
lulz have been had

>>3224697
1) feminism is not lame-ass
2) even if feminism was lame-ass, you need to respect your damn momma

>>3225441
>feminism is not lame-ass
>you need to respect your damn momma
>feminist propagating gender roles

shame on u

>>3225441
what if a have two dads, then what, bitch

>>3225477
hard-drinking, two-fisted cowboy feminism itt

>>3225485
respect your dadda. and your momma. respect as many daddas / mommas as you have. and grandmommas, granddaddas ,etc etc etc

>>3225441
>feminism is not lame

That is a lie.

>>3225496
My dad likes Dotoyevsky and Henry Miller but also likes Harry Potter and the Hunger Games.

>>3223185
Hero of the day.

My mom reads all the time, literary fiction. But she doesn't read anything /lit/core (DFW, Pynchon). But I wouldn't call her a casual. My dad doesn't read at all. My sister reads the occasional book.

>>3225477
>implying feminism is a monolith
>implying you can't be lame or a bitch and still be a feminist
Huehue
You better go tell those feminist camps that want to murder each other about all this new found ideological, tactical, and social unity.

>>3223172
Yes. The rest seems to somewhat disapprove of living a bohemian lifestyle and think having an interest in things is to be followed up by pursuing some sort of employment that is the closest to dealing with those things or actually dealing with them and that this is part of the way to "happiness".

>father's library
>there are 2 more walls like these in the house

makes me look casual

>Father is a published writer, literature professor and worked as an editor for over 10 years

Nope. If anything, I'm the casual.

>>3224322
damn nigger u just went full feel

>ITT: arrogant men who took all their "education" from reading books without a single thought created by themselves.
But yeah, let's spit at dem plebs.
It disgusts me what /lit/ has become.

My father is half-pleb. He grew up in Communistic Poland, therefore his access to education was lacking and access to arts and 'culture' also very limited. Nonetheless, my dad is an antiquarian and it's a pleasure to talk with him about history and wonders of civilizations, something that my mom and her side does not poses. Plus, my father is very intelligent when it comes to politics. He is not 'cultured' in that he doesn't read much literature, watch films or appreciate a good painting, but it's due to the fact he's a construction worker and is just too tired of life to think abstractly, but he is efficiently and cleverly smart in that he knows about economics, business, politics and generally is very knowledgeable about the world. Shame he is an illegal immigrant not allowed to show his full potential.

>>3225578

That is baller as fuck.

Lots of good books in there? I wish my parents had a library like that. I've had to buy all of my own books.

My father is uneducated past compulsory school, has worked in physical labor since he was 17, does not read books and is semi-alcoholic. Still, he can occasionally drop a pithy line of wisdom that none of the professors and whatnot who I know could ever dream up. There is value in not being saturated by thoughts that other men have created.

my great-great-grand father was one of the most important intelectuals of my city (medellin, colombia). he hung out with all the poets and what not in the most important intellectual group of the epoch, called "los panidas" (they were liberals). he eventually became medellin's major. he left me some rare first editions of colombian literature (specially leon de greiff). he was a very close friend to the "most important" philosospher in colombia's history: fernando gonzales (well he is like the only one also) (i have a letter from him to my great grandpa) my grandfather was a pleb, he drinked all the money of my great grand father. my father "restored" the familie's fortune (not to the extent my great grandfather had) and was not a pleb: he bought a lot of literary collections that are quite awesome but suddenly lost interest for them and started watching movies all days (exclusively hollywood shit or ww2 documentaries). he only reads nonfiction books about ww2. my brother reads like 1 book per year on his own will (he studies law, so he reads a lot from university) (what I recommend him) and is "interested" in philosophy (he is reading diary of a seducer by kierkegaard, but hell, he didnt even knew who he is, he picked it out of my library beacause it had an interesting title) my mom read sometimes, novels that are recommended by her sisters, like steig larsson and dan brown and shit like that

My mother has been reading a lot of books recently by people who claim to have gone to heaven. Now, she is reading 50 Shades of Gray.

God, I hate my mother.

My grandmother reads a bunch of Christian stuff that has no value whatsoever and my uncle reads super-pleb shit like Dan Brown. Besides those two, no one in my family reads. Once when my aunt was visiting, I received a book on Medieval Warfare and she looked at me as if it were something totally taboo like a collection of incestuous erotica or something.

They know that I write, too, and all they can say is: "When is he getting published? Why hasn't he done it yet?" As if it were as easy as going out and picking up some food.

My sisters occasionaly read fiction. My brother likes military stuff so he'll read stuff like that. Tho theyre all as intelligent as i am they think im being snobby when i try to talk about books. I know sometimes its because ill ask them if theyve heard of so and so or if they knew what so and so did. Well damn, people have different interest i dont know what you fucking. Know. Anyways they arent really interested and if i show them, and they dont get it, they wont try. My sisters especially would benefit. One, i think, is the smartest in the family, the other is a good judge of character and can pick up emotions, sentiments and motives well. The latter i think at least would be fairly entertained with novels dealing with human affairs. We have similar personality traits and thats mostly what i enjoy.

>>3224216
Same here really. My dad used to be into poetry and literature but now he just sits on the couch all day watching TV. I used to buy him the occasional book for Christmas or his birthday but he never reads him. Whenever I as him about it he just says he doesn't have the time. My parents just seem so tired and it is pretty depressing,

>>3225834
wow, are you me? the one and only difference between your father and mine are the places that they grew up in.

>>3223172
My Brother barely reads. It doesn't interest him.

My Dad doesn't have time to read, and when he does he only reads non-fiction about political issues. He's not a total pleb though, because he has pretty good taste in novels, he just doesn't read that often.

My mom probably reads more than I do. She has a lot of time on her hands and she loves to read. She reads real books too. She's part of some book club for elderly ladies, and they read some pretty serious (though entirely uncontroversial) shit.

Three of my grandparents are still alive. Two of them just watch TV all day, but my Grandfather on my fathers day is a true partition. He has read EVERYTHING. Complex scientific stuff, all the classics, most twentieth century American literature, novels, poetry, plays--He doesn't read speculative fiction or any modern fiction, but aside from that he read everything. He used to send me tons of books every Christmas. He sent me A Tale of Two Cities when I was like 8. So yeah, he is no casual.

I have no kids of my own, and haven't seen my cousins since I was a teenager, but I do still see a few of aunts and uncles, and they all read pretty seriously too. I'd still say they're casuals, but not totally lost causes.

So while there are probably only two other non-casuals in my family, overall I'd say we're a pretty bookish bunch.

>>3223419
>that feel when non-casuals think deep down that reading books makes them have more of a "life"

>>3226126
>tfw people think deep down that not developing any critical thinking skills whatsoever makes them have more of a "life"

>>3223203
>>3223213
>>3223240
>>3223325
>>3223337
>>3225418
>>3225543
Fucking newfags. It's pretty much the stock standard response every time one of these stupid "casual" threads rears its ugly head.

>>3226138
>tfw "life" is a societal construct

>>3223325

That book was amazing.

no, far from it. My dad is exceptionally well read. My mom, while read, has questionable book tastes, (thought Cloud Atlas was an original work) she's also into that Celestine Prophecy and Four Agreement type stuff. My sister is an English major specializing in Contemporary Middle Eastern literature. Both my Grandmothers were English profs, I have an aunt and uncle who are English profs, (my uncle actually co-wrote an anthology with Joyce Carol Oates) another one of my uncles can school anyone on Sartre, another writes and publishes poetry.
Sometimes i honestly wish they didn't, it makes for a lot of pointless pissing contests at get together's.

Me and my sister-in-law read Ender's Game.

That makes us non-casual, right?


...right?

>>3223185

How could you be so disrespectful of Herr Professor? Monster!

Savage urges aside, what are your thoughts on the new Beitrage translation? It just came out this year, and I'm curious why /lit/ did or didn't like it compared to the 1999 one. Supposedly it's more accurate to the German, but is it equally readable?

I'm the only non casual in my entire state.

My mom doesn't read and has a good relationship with her extended family as well as with a tight circle of friends. My dad is a casual and I honestly don't think he has a single friend besides his brothers and the guys he eats lunch with at work. I am a non-casual and I post on 4chan. My older sister is the original non-casual in our family and she has no friends that I am aware of, lives with our parents at 26, and attempted suicide a few years ago. She did very well on the ACT, though. Books are poison.

>>3226093
>My parents just seem so tired and it is pretty depressing,

Same, it's hard to watch. I should be moved out by now./

>>3226140
First time I've ever seen it and I've been on here for a few years now.

>>3225441
just because she is my mom doesnt make her writing non-shitty. I love her and like spending time with her but her pretentious sexist essays that ramble on and are full of superfluous vocabulary just make we want to vomit.

maybe you should read some of her trite before you judge me.

>>3226269
is she hot?

>>3223172

Nah.

>>3223185

Glad to see my post still makin rounds

I'm a WASP. My dad is working himself to death and pretty much only reads something like Cheever or Updike now and then. New York Times, WSJ, and New Yorker regularly.

>>3223354

>My family members watch TV and thus, in my opinion (which is objectively true; duh), waste their lives.
>I'm different and therefore better

That's pretty edgy, bro.

My father once said that people only wrote poetry to make themselves feel superior to other people, and that he was sure that Michael Ignatieff wrote poetry. I'm probably not the only casual in my family, but I sure have some dumb relatives.

yes, of course

because everyone else in my family is studying/studied real subjects ;_;

>>3225894
I don't know why, but I love the way you write.

My Dad read quite a bit at Uni, and my maternal grandfather is pretty much on my level, everyone else though are on varying levels of casualty. (see what i did there?????????)