/lit/ - Literature

>>3840587
The reason why I have not read a single raw book in my life is because, whenever I tried to read the whole book, I got bored and ended my interest in the book immediately. Another reason is because of the language that most of the authors seem to use in their books. It gives me a headache and they seem extremely vague. Sometimes they are the opposite, just way too specific about rather insignificant details.

To be frank, not even books that are very relevant to my current scholarship are that much interesting. I swore to myself that I'd finish Screenplay by Syd Field, but obviously never did. His book was great. His way of conveying a message was straight to the point and simple for me to understand, but I still got bored after one-third of its total.

To repeat, I have nothing against people that read books or even the books themselves, but the reason I am making this thread is because it seems like every single person around me has read at least one book. Is there something wrong with me? I seem to score perfectly fine on English essays I write at school - but am I missing something for not reading literature?

Why? Why not?

You're a high-functioning person on the spectrum. Congratulations. Or maybe just extreme ADD. I can sympathize. Proper books just flesh things out in more detail and try to draw you into a world (a different place or a different mindset). They paint pictures, and especially a portrait of the imagination or thoughts of the author. Getting to the meat of things is great, but chewing the gristle to the bone gives you something more intimate.

>>3840618
I am not mentally ill as far as I am concerned. If I did have attention deficit disorder, I think I'd be browsing /b/ and not even bothering to perform well at school.

Really, though, the problem is just that it takes a ridiculously long amount of time to read a book. The problem might be that the books deliver such a deep experience that I simply don't want to spend all that time dwelling into all the details. With a movie or a TV show, you get just about the surface of a story (due to the natural budget constraints) - with a book, you get a whole lot deeper. It simply makes me want to become a part of the story. Hence, the instant interest in pen & paper roleplaying games.

But who knows? I started many projects before, such as drawing a full-scale battleship in Inkscape. I finish the rough outline, start doing some details on the bridge and quit drawing. The same happened with any project I wanted (initially) to do. Of course, if my project needs to be done, such as a school assignment, I do it. I do it solidly.

>>3840667
It sounds like you lack patience and resolve.

>>3840677
It probably is as simple as that.

>>3840680
Short stories might be your route in to literature if that's the case.

Nabokov writes beautiful and heartwrenching things.

Richard Brautigan even someone with ADD can stick to the end of his shorter stories (some are one or two sentences long)- also beautiful and soul marring.

Ray Bradbury's Illustrated Man is supposedly a novel, but is comprised of a series of short stories based on the illustrations on the man in question. The overarching story is pretty terrible and obvious, but the stories themselves are fanciful and would fit with your other reaches into books.

You might also find that if you don't have to finish things in a straight run, but can come back to them and still remember the plot so far once the boredom has worn off, in which case a bookmark is probably what you need.

And since not all literature is prose or novel length, even if that is not the case, you can probably find an author who appeals to you. Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass for instance is intended to be an epic volume, but can be taken in much smaller chunks.

There's hope for you yet OP, don't worry.

Dude, if you like tabletop RPGs, come over to /tg/ sometime.

>>3840680
Just work on improving yourself. It's that simple anon.

>>3840707
> Richard Brautigan was an American novelist, poet, and short story writer. His work often employs black comedy, parody, and satire.
> black comedy, parody, and site.

Heh, that is pretty neat. I shall look into these. Thanks.

>>3840711
I was at /tg/ on several occasions. To be honest, I tried three times to start a Rogue Trader campaign as a GM. the first try was so horrible that I am not even going to mention it. The second was a billion magnitudes better, but people started bailing out without leaving any explanation or warning at all. Both of those games were set up on www.rpol.net. A pretty cool website.

The third time was on /tg/. I got a bunch of dudes that filled in all the vital roles and it was interesting to see a quick gathering of fellow 4chan folks.

I ended everything quickly when one guy showed me his "finished" spreadsheet with missing gear, skills and talents, and asking what was wrong. Really, why was that guy on /tg/? Just why? I am destined to be put up with horrible people.

>>3840719
Well, that was not very insightful, to say the least.

>>3840728
You might not like all of the stories in Revenge of the Lawn (his collection of short stories), but if you do like some I suggest that you look into his novels. Trout Fishing in America is what made him popular back in the hippy days, but I'd suggest most anything else of his over that.

His poetry is also quite accessible if you like the style of his short stories.

(I think I might have sold the Illustrated Man short because the overarching plot sandwiches the short stories, and you can ignore the concluding part of the plot device which is probably about a page or two in length since you'll most likely see it coming. And then be disappoint)

Dear OP:

There is not some hidden curse that is keeping you from getting into a book. Quite simply, your ability to concentrate on a long text is fucked because of your time spent online, as well your time spent reading encyclopedias.

Your mind wants to constantly switch from topic to topic and is accustomed to consuming packets of information rather than, say, reading 20 or even just 10 pages of the same story in a row.

The only way to solve this problem is to train yourself to read the same text for longer periods in a library or on a train.

Pretty much no one does this.

In about three generations everyone will quack at each other in Orwellian duckspeak hashtag yolo swag four twenty blaze it bix nood muh fuggah