/lit/ - Literature

I don't know but it's upsetting. I know in high school the books that were assigned were almost programmed to make people hate reading.

>>4773212
>the rarest

>major in english hoping to meet lifelong friends with a shared passion
>kept telling myself "maybe when i'm out of the low level classes things will be better"
>people are just as pleb in the 400 level classes
>3 1/2 years later i'll be graduating soon and I haven't made a single friend

welp...

at least my family is rich so at least I don't have to work at Starbucks

What universities do you guys go to?

The education system gave up, failed. The pop culture raised masses outnumber the serious minded. Apathetic bougie culture trying to forget/ignore/push away the realities. Yes, its capitalism vs marxism again.

I wish you had been able to turn the club towards better and lead them out of this baby stage...

>>4773212

I had a similar experience with my college's lit club. It's too bad, because I go to a small arts school way out in the middle of bumfuck nowhere; you'd think there'd be more interest in that kind of thing.

>see poster
>go to first meeting of the year
>entire thing is about shitty genre fiction
>figure they're just easing the plebs into big leagues
>September goes by in a similar fashion
>then October
>then most of November
>take president of club aside one day, after we come back from break
"So uh, when are we going to start discussing more...intellectual, serious stuff? Hell, even a bit of Austen or Dickens would be a welcome change."
>prez just stares at me like I grew fucking antlers or something
>"uh, we try not to be too intimidating..."
>fuckthisshitimout.fag

>>4773241
same sitch here

except poor family

it's going to be a long life

yeah its really sad, lameos at my college literature club are incredibly unattractive girls and nerdy virgin guys who jerk off over LOTR, Harry Potter and write shitty poetry about mundane subjects like the different seasons.

Where are all the cool kids that like to read transgressive post-modern literature?

>>4773254

They're over with me at Middlebury

Sorry fagets

>>4773260
middlebury is pretty selective man, congrats

im doing a summer language program there soon :)

>>4773268

Welcome aboard, matey. You'll love it here.

>>4773271
um im only gonna be there 8 weeks but thanks

>>4773260
>tfw will never be a trust fund kid who can go to a cool private liberal art college in New England
life is suffering, anime-kun

I've never read any book other than finnegans wake, step up your games

>>4773212
Did you really expect people who don't know each other to start a conversation about serious literature? It's perfectly normal to talk about the latest G.R.R Martin, LOTR or whatever's currently in pop culture if you're new to someone. Nobody starts a conversation at a party about Wittgenstein, Hegel or Cunt. You might bring it up later.
So you probably missed all of that stuff by leaving early.

>>4773278

>trust fund kid

Nah m8 I'll be up to my ears in debt, just like half the people here.

>tfw don't give a shit because the last 3 years have been the best years of my life

>>4773288

Nope.

My friend was in it all freshman year, said it was like that all the time.

>>4773289
>best years of my life
how so?

>>4773297

It's just a really great school. Everyone makes fun of the potheads here but in reality they're a shrinking minority. Most of the students here are really passionate about their field, and the people here for literature/writing programs are no exception. Plus the town itself is beautiful. The whole thing is pretty much a /lit/izens wet dream come true, all for the low low price of 60K a year.

>>4773297

>>4773311
I am jelly, my kawaii friend.

Here I am going to an okay-tier state school where everyone is a pleb and girls are skanks, studying accounting and accumulating minimum debt, could be worse.

there's a rather low key l'acephale club at my uni that has a handful of members, probably amounting to less than ten. the main focus is eroticism and existentialism from de sade and bataille to nietzsche. i can at appreciate the sentiment at least, it's a hidden pearl in an otherwise uninteresting school

>>4773336
that sounds cool as fuck, even though I am not a pleb who likes Nietzsche, I could appreciate the De Sade part.

>>4773212
Because casuals rule the nation. Why don't you start a brand new club, m8?

>>4773212
>anon goes to a party
>anon leaves early because there's no deep conversations
>anon calls the others awkward

>anon joins a literature club at his college
>anon discovers that the group isn't what he was looking for
>anon decides he must've exhausted his thousands of relationships at the school and that none of them are as deep as him

make your own fucking club, call it Wow Haha are We Really the Only People at This School Who Love Literature?????? Wow, We Must be, Like, Magical, Haha!!!!! Club

>>4773371
>!!

>>4773336
sheeeyit that sounds awesome

>>4773251
Oh fuck "intimidating". Next time tell them that books are not gonna chop off their balls while they sleep. There is nothing to be scared.

>>4773226
Nobody should be relying on school to develop an interest in reading.

>>4773364
I think you inverted 'Nietzsche' and 'Sade' bro.

>>4773288
Nah the people that read and like wittgenstein and hegel want to talk immediately about that. The people who talk about Martin and Saunders will keep talking about them (until they acquire a taste for something more serious)

>>4773251
>intimidating
What's the whole point of a book club if you're not going to read books that are "intimidating" like Joice. I've always thought that this was the whole point of book clubs.

>>4773288
>Nobody starts a conversation at a party about Wittgenstein

Eh, I've done it. I was drunk on a balcony and referenced Philosophical Investigations to somebody I didn't know and someone else overheard and then a few others chimed in and it led to a pretty great conversation that lasted a few hours.

>>4773409
>someone else overheard and then a few others chimed in and it led to a pretty great conversation that lasted a few hours
Why is it so great when you find random people that share your interests? It's like falling in love.

>>4773393
nope, pretty sure that Nietzsche is the pleb here

>go to college "literary society"
>around 30 people there
>all women except for 5 guys, including me
>tea to drink
>go around room, ask us our favorite books/authors
>atwood
>game of thrones
>sylvia plath, props
>hunger games
>tolkein
>vonnegut
>this one fat ginger dude wearing a scarf says "Infinite Jest"
>later, we're given a little writing prompt on a subject, i think it was advertisements
>one girl wrote a rant about how ads distort woman's standards of beauty
>one guy writes about a billboard in a zombie apocalypse wasteland, says it is inspired by fallout 3

I went to 2 other meetings and they were all pretty lackluster and boring. Basically just cliquish hangouts. They liked giggling about how hot the creative writing professor was and pretty much anything other than literature.

>close to the end of the year (like a week ago)
>get an email asking for applications for executive positions
>respond and say I would like to be President, say I was disappointed with the quality of the club and offer up a few suggestions and ideas for improvement.
>current leader responds, clearly offended, talking about how it's supposed to be laid-back to attract more members and how they're "a club, not a class"

Oh well. A /lit/fag can dream, huh

>>4773431
>ubermensch detected

>>4773417
It's a redeeming feeling. I regret not getting contact info. Apparently one of the girls lives in Arizona, which is far from where we were at the time. She was pretty awesome, spoke five languages, namedropped Anti-Oedipus (whatever your feelings on D&G may be, that's a pretty refreshing namedrop around these parts). One of the others was an aspiring poet. I think part of me was scared that any further interaction would lead to disappointment, which is a pretty consistent fear of mine.

>>4773439
>I am le ubermensch!
seriously if you think that Nietzsche is better than Sade, I got some bad news for you

>>4773431
On what grounds ? Sade is funny and interesting, he's important (seminal, one would say) for the authors he influenced. But he's not really that great a writer, most of his work haven't that much philosophical substance, and Nietzsche is more challenging and more thought-through in pretty much every respect.

>Why is it so damn hard to find people like this outside /lit/?

Because they dont exist, the "literary lifestyle" is something a bunch of hipsters invented in the 1960s to get laid, and which humanities majors now use to justify their massive crippling student debt. None of the great authors in the past lived the "literary lifestyle", except for a few who cashed in on it during the 60s/70s, but even for them it was a lie. Most authors were out actually living life, not jerking off to how fucking superior and deep they are.

Im not doing this just to criticize you, Im doing this because I think this is seriously impacting your ability to lead to a happy and healthy life. You got invited, I assume by someone who at least somewhat likes you, to a party, which was full of people who probably would have liked you as well for the same reason the person who invited you did.

But what did you do? You fucking shat all over that, you threw it away. You threw away a chance to make friends and meet new people because they didnt reinforce your masturbatory fantasies of being some bohemian literary genius. Tell me, if you are really living the literary lifestyle, why do you feel the urge to meet other people living it? Because those people reinforce your self image, which you yourself dont even believe which is why you feel the need to reinforce it. I am an X person, therefore I must hang around people who are also X. No fuck you. Step out of your comfort zone. Stop trying to be better than other people, because you arent. You are fucking decaying organic matter, you are a shitting bleeding sack of meat that despite all your doomed attempts at pseudo-immortality through literature is going to end up being worm food. Im not being edgy. Im just trying to tell you, your life is way to short to play such a stupid anal retentive game.

You will never be Kerouac. Go cry in your closet for a few hours, maybe cut yourself, down a few shots of apple flavored vodka. Whatever helps you cope with that. Then, you need to get up, move the fuck on, and start actually living life.

>>4773449
i was complimenting you, you fucking retard. to hate nietzsche is a healthy feeling.

>>4773399

>Joice

>>4773409
>tfw when drunk philosophical conversation on the spot

It's about the best feeling. Out of curiosity, what did the conversation revolved around ?

>>4773253
Oddly, you might actually find intelligent people working at Starbucks. There's like a reverse thing where people who are constantly told "Oh you're so clever anon" and succeed academically don't try and improve themselves, but then people working menial jobs do. Last decent conversation about Orwell was with a barista, before that a brick layer. On the other hand, bona fide Barristers, nearly always no.

>>4773458
I agree with the root of your attitude, but you are coming across as a presumptuous cunt here.

It's one thing to get caught up in the phantom "literary lifestyle" but there's really nothing wrong with wanting a few friends to discuss books you like with.

>>4773460
>to hate nietzsche is a healthy feeling.
*tips feeldora*

>>4773241
fuck man that sucks.

we're always here for you :3

>>4773458
Not op but I'm tired of this bullshit.

So a people liked him, who cares? Are you so insecure that you have to be grateful and enthused whenever someone likes you?

You see the point is not about feeling superior to others, it's not a power game and if you see everywhere a power game and a struggle for superiority that speaks more about you than it does about op.

It's about finding kindred spirits and people that are capable of enriching your life and share your same interests and passions and with whom you can build a project. It's about not being willing to accept the lowest common denominator in life and pretending a discussion deeper than a thought catalog article.

It's good to be selective, most people are a waste of time and resources and there is no real reason to give them attention if you don't think that it is what you are looking for.

What people like you don't realize is that what you are proposing is for people to be as passive in towards their company and society as we are with media.

Under the pretense of being modest and open all you do is say to people "sit down in front of the tv and gulp down. Don't judge, don't be critical, accept it and be grateful."
You don't realize that all that is is just reactionary resentment.

i just saw u can't get underage banned anymore lol

>>4773212
OP is there a version of your pic for every board?

I was in /g/ asking for help the other day and I saw a tech version. The guy was a fedora autistic neckbeard who wanted to load gentoo on ppl's android.

>>4773608
it's like a self-parody thing that some of the boards have done. they're pretty funny.

>>4773524

good post. wish you weren't behind a computer screen. fucking lonely.

>>4773250
>Yes, its capitalism vs marxism again.
>implying marxism doesn't relies on misinformation and ignorance as much as capitalism
If anything it's capitalism vs Nietzche the hedgehog.

>>4773226
there were three books in high school that we had to read that weren't shit tier
they were:
the catcher in the rye
of mice and men
the great gatsby
besides these, every book was shit tier and awful

>>4773251

>Austen
>Dickens
>"intimidating

>>4773212
I imagine most people who invest serious time and effort into Proper Literature live quieter, more solitary lives. I say this only because, like you, I've met only a few people who read Proper Literature. Perhaps we just live in less literate areas.

There is another layer to this problem. Even when you find people who read the kinds of books you like, there is this uncritical, pretentious attitude among some of them that leads to uninteresting superficial conversation. Or worse, you are simply handwaved away because you don't fit the "literary" mold (meaning you are clean cut and in shape).

>>4773608
>>4773614
The majority were made by /fa/ to represent various lifestyle/fashion stereotypes and whatnot. My personal favorite is the lunarcore/spacecore one.

>>4773212
Make friends with upper-level english majors.

>>4773250

bad post by a bad poster

>>4773241
You have to get to grad level before anybody cares, and then it's still a mixed bag.

>>4773226
While this thread is pretentious as shit, albeit true in a sense, forcing a bunch of white middle class kids to read shit like Zora Neale Hurston isn't going to help anyone, I'll agree.

>>4773440
>tfw go to University of Arizona
N-name pls

>>4774031
Eustace Biggums

>>4773710
Wait... so they'll just disregard you if you're fat and they don't think you have a good haircut? Is this seriously how people think?

>>4774115
yeah fucking normalfags man

>>4773670
I read:
Frankenstein
Othello
Hamlet
Pride and prejudice
Candice

In high school. Did yours just suck or something?

>>4774123
my school sucked dick
we read pleb shit like the scarlet letter and to kill a mockingbird

>>4774131
Yeah to kill a mockingbird is "anti racism shoved down your throat: the book"

It's mostly vapid in style and content

>>4774123
>Candice
Candice, or Whatever is a satire first publishe in California in 1992. It begins with a young gal, Candice, who is living a sheltered life in an Edenic suburb and being indoctrinated with valley optimism (or simply Optimism) by her mentor, Clueless.

Why don't you hang around aspiring academics? Oh wait they're probably going to be as pretentious as you. Seriously buddy, why don't you start spending long sessions in the uni library? Maybe you'll find some likeminded individuals rumaging through shelves. This hasn't worked for me, but maybe you'll fare differently.
If book club can't do it for you than you're either too uppity or too marginal. You could always start your own meetup group in the local library. Remember not to be so rarefied that you turn off potential friends.

>tfw my ex-gf used to find it 'cute' that I liked reading classic lit
>tfw my friend once recited the 'curtains were fucking blue' speech to me for analysing 'too deeply' an excerpt from a text
>tfw the only person I can discuss lit with is my brother who reads lovecraft and GOT, and even then I don't find either of those particularly interesting

>>4773212
>Why is it so damn hard to find people like this outside /lit/?

because people dont read, deal with it

> on a date with a cute pie from my college
>ask her what she reads
>she says her favorite book is harry potter series
>what.jpeg
>make a slightly ironic remark about the book, and tell her i like more serious literature
>she calls me a pretentious snob and leaves

well whatever, too bad she was really hot

>>4774134
>Truman Capote
>vapid in style

There is one girl in my class who had read Camus, Wilde and other nice ones i like as well, but doesn't seem to care about them. She prefers fantastic fiction to those. Though it is still good to have a word with someone about them, even if they don't really like those said books.

>>4773251

>"uh, we try not to be too intimidating..."

God damn it people like this really grind my gears.

The book isn't going to come to life and rip your lungs out, just pick it the fuck up and read it. If you don't get a lot out of it, move on or read it again.

It's really just not that hard.

>>4775014
when people go on about the curtains just being blue what do they think is even the point of telling the reader? why does it matter if they are just blue

>>4774118
Are you mocking me or is this a serious response?

>>4773727
Pretty sure it started on /mu/

>tfw sitting in a pub with my friends translating Prometheus Bound
>tfw passionate discussions about the value of Byron's philosophy
>tfw the closest we get to gossip is discussing Claire Clairmont or Beatrice Portinari
>tfw one of us doesn't speak Italian so we make jokes about his love life while speaking it
>tfw all of us speak German so we use it to exclude outsiders
>tfw one of us is extraordinarily wealthy and we're going to spend summer at her estate in Ireland or else in her house in northern Italy

It's wonderful to have finally found 'my people'. Shame it took so long.

>>4775056
To kill a mocking bird it's harper lee not capote

>>4775150
fucking scum

>>4775150
>tfw the closest we get to gossip is discussing Claire Clairmont or Beatrice Portinari
>one of us doesn't speak Italian so we make jokes about his love life while speaking it
lol

>be in university
>none of my friends read
>just talk about how cool it would be to work at google
>be marxist
>feel depressed that a few bright colours, some goofy faggy seating, and google employment ideas make them so happy
>friends confused by the ultra-simple film Belly
>stop talking to anyone, get really depressed, develop a far more severe and violent form of social anxiety
>have to do cbt therapy and anxiety meds to improve myself just to where I was 7 years ago
>start to improve and talk to people again, realize they are still talking about lifting, how amazing skydiving is, and when they'll go rock climbing.
>my hands are only for the library.
>cycle is beginning again.

>>4775305
stop being such a faggot
pic related its you

>>4775327
not enough relation to me to make it worth posting that.

>>4775327
post more v for vendetta pics

>>4775305
Once you completely accept the library life, once you stop comparing yourself to the petit-bourgeois, it's great. I'm in the most happy state of complacency right now. I don't feel alienated or obligated to fit in. I have my own identity which I am entirely happy with.

>>4775150
>translating Prometheus Bound

lost it

>>4773614
is this /fit/? i thought they hate running

>>4773212
>Steve Reich
maximum überpleb

>>4775397

>is this /fit/? i thought they hate running

I think it's /fa/ after they had some discussion about what would be upcoming fashions, and a lot of anons thought it would be sportscore.

/fit/ would never run, cardio kills gains

>>4773670
Of Mice and Men is so boring. I hated reading that in high school

>>4773241
you're a pleb until you hit grad school

>>4773212
i spent 3 years of my undergrad trying to build a literary and philosophy club at my university with my one and only friend there. We organized lectures, reading groups, all kinds of events. Nobody every showed up besides the two of us. It was pretty depressing tbh, but hell if we didn't try.

>>4775107
If you're brazilian, specifically from Belo Horizonte, I guess you're talking about my best friend

Also
>tfw most of my friends are interested in politics, philosophy and "serious" literature
>tfw able to discuss situationist theory, aesthethics and pomo literature anytime I want with people I love despite the occasional discordances

>>4773212
Cum to William and Mary and we will chill

>>4774150

>chilling with friends
>put morton feldman's second string quartet
>confront myself and my self (as an ontological historical entity) with the mirror of atonality (as a mirror is not an empathic but a reflexive entity, alien to the space and time it reflects and only existing by itself in relation to the other) and realize the boundaries of human thought, comprehension and consciousness
>reach rational ecstasy
>pleb friend gets up and says "what is this silence shit, lmao, put some nirvana"
>get angry at their rockist subaltern consumption conditioned by the structures of power of the imperialist white economies, but contain it
>calm myself down by remembering quotes from finnegans wake, my favorite book since i was a teenager
>mfw can't express myself because i'm a spectator in the society of spectacle

"It is not the slumber of reason which engenders monsters, but vigilant and insomniac rationality. - Gilles Deleuze" - ~Astigmata

>>4775046
you clearly are a pretentious snob, so is pretty much everyone else here

actually it sounds just like /lit/

>>4775606
10/10 satire right there.

>>4773241
If you just adopt me and pay all my bills I promise to dedicate every day of my life to reading and discussing what I've read with you

>>4773311
>Everyone makes fun of the potheads
The fact that you listed people making fun of a group of people you don't like as a reason the last three years of your life have been your best years makes me sad for you

>>4775665

Where the fuck did you get that? I meant everyone outside of Middlebury makes fun of "all the potheads" here but in reality there aren't that many.

Learn to read, dude.

>>4775665

Potheads are shit, though. Especially here in Vermont (Champlainfag here). Most of them either shitpost pseudoscience on Facebook all day or longboard right under your wheels as you try to drive.

Some of them think they're real deep and intellectual, but most of their ramblings boil down to inane metaphysical shit like "what if life has no purpose maaaaaaan" or "what if it's all like connected maaaaaaan"

I have nothing against people who smoke weed every now and then but the idiots who buy into that whole retarded rasta culture really piss me off.

>>4775014

>>tfw my friend once recited the 'curtains were fucking blue' speech to me for analysing 'too deeply' an excerpt from a text

I bet this "friend" of yours couldn't cite any possible pros to the argument.

People like this cling on to any little old thing that will support their intellectual insecurities instead of actually taking a balanced look at the issue.

And I bet that he mentioned it in a smug way as well. This is only speculation of course, but I bet he did. It wasn't out of an earnest appreciation for simplicity, but rather he wanted to feel that the matter that he didn't understand or had trouble understanding wasn't worth knowing whilst also entertaining the same degree of elitism towards it all that he feels the other side entertains.

You need to just shrug these people off. From my personal experience I have found them to be just too draining to deal with.

They can't get over their egotism and understand that allowing their artistic attitudes to be motivated my confirmation bias diminishes the possibility of resonance itself.

Most of them will simply never move past this. Understand that you are one of the rare few who can and just move past it all. Don't waste energy trying to combat something that they've invested far more energy in holding on to.

>>4775712

But my rage is all I have

It keeps me alive

Rage against the plebs

>>4775716

Confirmation bias is the enemy, anon-kun.

Plebs have their lessons to teach you as well. Appreciate them.

>>4775726

They have taught me how to hate

>>4775703
>never smoked pot
>watches movies about people who smoke pot
>pretends to know people who smoke pot

>>4775744

>no counter-argument
>"lol the only potheads u kno r in movies"

Let me guess, you're not all like that. Trust me, I've heard it from around 70 or so stoners at this shithole.

>>4775703

>I have nothing against people who smoke weed every now and then but the idiots who buy into that whole retarded rasta culture really piss me off.

nailed_it.flv

>>4773394
>until the next big fantasy series comes out
Ftfy

>>4775327
But age will either take your mind or render it outdated as well.

>>4773212
>out of all the thousands of people at this fucking school, I've only found 2 who read and discuss serious literature.
Question.
Do Anthony Hope, Dolye, Christie, Gibson, Wilde, and Cervantes count as serious literature?
If not then the reason is because you're a conceited ass.

>>4773458
liked this at first, but this argument is essentially arguing for conformism.

>>4775138
He's joking. By clean cut and in shape he means not following whatever hipster-bohemian aesthetic, being a little messy, thrifted clothes, skinny and nonathletic. They're sort of poor, uneducated, immature idiots to have bad taste, anyway, you'll have the most luck talking to the clean cut and well off, nondescript folk not identifying with any distinct subcultural group.

>>4775712
Clinging to an idea like confirmation bias is the same sort of stupidity, anon. The same people do it for the same reasons, though obviously it only applies to anyone but them, especially anyone who they disagree with politically. They're more like criticism-defeating motivational tools, to easily cope with situations where they've encountered a work they aren't capable of 'solving' or a position they aren't capable of empathizing with.

>>4777472
I'm still not completely understanding... so, for them to consider you, you shouldn't try to fit the mold, but instead fit it by thrift shopping and being skinny? And the ones who aren't are going to be assumed as being uneducated and poor?

>>4777504
Not "the" mold, there are multiple. You need to fit the mold specific to subculture x for members of subculture x to value your conversation. Unfortunately, molds that tend to dictate cultural preference, moving beyond fashion and sensibility towards having a distinct and limited canon, tend to make people drones with bad taste who you wouldn't want to hold a conversation with anyway.

A 'hip' alt lit blogger will only want to talk to other alt lit bloggers because they share the same terrible taste. You shouldn't want to talk to them because they're boring uneducated drones who'll steer any conversation towards shallow gossip, bad art at best.
They're easy fucks but also not the most attractive. Imo, you'll have the best luck finding a good drinking companion, if you look for someone who doesn't force themselves into any single distinct mold. Note: this doesn't mean an internet autist whose created his own empire for himself in his room, but someone who's educated, with diverse varied interests, has his foot in multiple cultures/molds. Doesn't have to brand himself with some dumb, outdated label like Punk, Indie, Beatnik. These people tend to be rich, clean cut, and dress nondescript (quiet, not artless).

>>4775145
I don't doubt that it started elsewhere but, again, I think the majority were made on /fa/, mainly by a trip named tinfoil, all within the past year or two.

Even if I met a serious reader in the wild I wouldn't know what to say. My conversational skills are severely lacking. When I do try to talk to someone about 'intellectual' matters I always end up groping for the nearest idea I can - something that I've reflected over but only put some of into words, so what I say tends to be scattered and half or poorly-explained.

Once at work I met a guy who brought god is Not Great and I asked him about it. This was before I earned my /lit/ cerebrolord badge and so I didn't even know who Hitchens was. Instead I coughed up that I was reading Ulysses, Gravity's Rainbow, and Blood Meridian **at the same time**, which I was sincerely trying to do at that point. I never talked to him afterwards. Ah well, Hitchens is overrated anyway.

>>4777530
>alt lit
>bad

You can stop posting anytime

>>4777563
I didn't say that. The people who associate themselves with alt lit are bad, the actual literature can fly either way like any other work connected to any genre.

>>4773212
>go to lit club at uni
>similar to what OP describes sans EDM
>qt3.14 asks what I'm reading
>go to pleb answer is Vonnegut
>bitches love Vonnegut
>ask her out for copy, lend her copy of Slaughterhouse
>says yes
>mingle with others, same answer
>drop all forms of snobbery and just have a good time
>after a few meetings finally get to recommend something
>Borges
>everyone likes it
>helped that we read Edgar Allan Poe week prior

drop any levels of pretension and just go with it

>now qt is gf and shes starting Crime and Punishment.

>>4777594
*coffee. I never proofread

>>4777594
>Borges, Poe, C&P
wow you belong with those plebs faggot

>>4777549
>Even if I met a serious reader in the wild I wouldn't know what to say.

"Can I keep you?"

>>4777604
name writers better than them

inb4 youre that shakespeare fag again

>>4777604
i bet this guy started with the greeks

Some new guy I work with asked what the book in my pocket was and when I said "white noise" he said it was one of his favorites. When I told him I was also reading Mason & Dixon he said Pynchon was his favorite author, and also recommended I check out DFW. I didn't want to reveal my powerlevel, but hi Steven.

>>4777604
Do you expect a lit club at uni to instantly dive into "higher literature"?

I suggested them cuz they are entry level shit.

>>4777607
Cervantes, Rebelais, Tolstoy, Gogol, Dante, Stendhal, Zola, Huysmans, Celine, Proust, D H Lawrence, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, Alfred Doblin, Robert Musil, Goethe, Durenmatt, Akutagawa, Tanizaki, Hemingway, Purdy, Gaddis Bellow, Moravia, Genet, Bolano.

Just a few that sprang to mind on the spot.

Except Dostoevsky. But The Demons, The Idiot and Brother Karamazov are superior novels to C&P

>>4777580
Please let's not lie to ourselves.
Alt lit is just bad

>>4777652
It is but it wouldn't surprise me if Tao is read in the future as a sort of window into our time. High school or perhaps college students will be forced to drudge through Tai Pei, which, like the books were made to read in school, will foster a hatred of literature, thus renewing the cycle of a culture immune to lit's charms

>>4773212
You go to a shit school.

Make-up an excuse to transfer to a school that has a literary culture or stay and work to create a scene at your current pleb-tier institution. Only you can know which is the right choice.

>>4777686
Tao isn't necessarily alt lit, even though he's grouped with the scene. It's like Burroughs to the beatniks: a distanced, reluctant, fatherly association.

>>4777703
>reluctant
lmao. He publishes alt-lit vacuums on his "publishing house" tumblr

>>4777690
Who's that bitch you keep posting?

>>4777690
she's cute

>>4777539
I remember first seeing the original two years ago on /v/ when that feel was being spammed on the board before moot brought back /r9k/

...Also, you might try doing the usual stuff "literary types" do, besides the obvious one of joining a club. This might cause you to associate more with grad students or young professionals off campus, but it may be your only choice.

Alienating yourself from your fellow students is sort of a trade-off, so I'd tread lightly if you want to make the most of your time at Uni. Books and the bookish life will still be there when you graduate.

>>4777742
>Who's that bitch you keep posting?
Nora Lovely

>>4777686
Hopefully it will end up like Bukowski, read by a couple of teenager clueless about how to be cool and quickly forgotten afterwards.

>>4775469
Bit late to the party, but that's /out/.

Reading isn't about finding others who enjoy what you read, that's what writing's about. I don't think about my literary taste, I read what I like, and that changes subconciously, beyond my will even, leading me inevitably to reading new things. I read for me and I'm interested myself enough in my own reading fate not to judge others on theirs. I have friends who read some of the same things I do and it despairs me that their life choices don't line up with mine perfectly—how is it any different though than reading choices? We're friends nevertheless, for friendships have always come about in the same way for me in the sense that it's beyond my control what books I enjoy, the choices I think I must make, and who's a true friend. After all, I've always taken it for granted that reading is a solitary activity.

>in college
>first day of one of my classes
>teacher asks us to introduce ourselves by stating our name, our favorite book, and our favorite band
>over 70% of the class says the great gatsby and the beatles
i ain't joking

>>4779123
What did you answer?

>>4779201
The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, particularly their performance of Parsifal.

Favorite book: tie between Pale Fire and The Phenomenology of Spirit.

>>4779225
Nailed it.

Holy shit, /lit/, I haven't been here in more than a year now, have the threads gotten better?

To answer OP's question: you're probably safe ignoring almost everybody in the English department. What you need to do is find philosophy students. Not fedora atheists, but real philosophy students, especially the ones with a serious interest in phenomenology and continental philosophy, in my experience. I have a very enriching (albeit small) group of friends who are all well read, love literature, are articulate and fun to be around/get drunk with. All or them are either specializing in philosophy or have philosophy as their second major after English.

The contemporary English department, for whatever reason, just fails instill a real reverence for the subject, and if you didn't come to university with a serious passion for literature (not just because you liked Harry Potter and didn't know what to pick as your major), chances that you will leave with one are slim.

>>4773250
Frenchfag here.

Pourquoi utilises-tu toujours un mot en français balancé en plein milieu d'une phrase en anglais sans raison ?
Je veux bien avec des mots ou des expressions qui sont relativement claires, mais je ne comprends pas l'intérêt là.
"Candle culture"......
>mon visage quand j'ai lu ça

>>4778996
This, but I think what the people in the thread are complaining about (ie the post below yours) are people who never began any sort of 'literary journey'. It's not a matter of bad taste, but having no taste at all, maybe incidentally being exposed to something, forced to read the Great Gatsby in English, friends all gushed over Harry Potter/Hunger Games in highschool, etc. that were likely not enjoyed with little personal interest. I don't stress myself over it, to me it just seems like only one of many depressing results of the terrible state western education is in today. But it was fucked in a different ways in previous generations, too. There's little use worrying.

>know nobody into literature
>get laughed at by friends for reading anything more than hunger games
>visit uncle
>gives me 30 books to read
>all of them great
at least i have family

>>4777642
i love huysmans as much as the next guy but he's not better than borges. same with hemingway, bellows, and bolano.

Anybody here go to NYU? I'm about to transfer there and I'm wondering how their literature club is.

>>4780085

It's wack but your in NYC plenty of well read people here

>>4773727
>Vektor

holy god that band DESTROYS THE COSMOS. But I didnt know I was supposed to dress like that when you love Vektor.

>tfw I live in a small midwestern town
Seriously, I know one person who knows any literature at all outside of my grandparents on my mother's side, who, in all fairness, are very intelligent people.

On a slightly related note:

I'm sure other people here feel really disconnected from the whole "college experience", or at the very least, the people around them. What have you guys done to try to overcome the seemingly inescapable disappointment of how college has so far turned out?

I like my classes and all, and though I'm not in a /lit/-related major, I read just about daily. But I feel fundamentally disconnected from my peers. Not in a "wow im a special snowflake way", but a fundamental lack of shared interests in addition to like mild "derealization". I wake up every morning and stare at my ceiling for hour+ just trying to find reasons to get up in the morning. In my classes I feel as if the people around me aren't even real. I think I'm mildly depressed or something, but I sort of had trouble with socializing my entire life. Connecting with the people around me has always been more of a struggle than anything else.

To cope I just read books, watch film, and do well in my classes, but nothing seems to be able to fill the void of just a complete lack of friendship/intimacy of any kind in my life.

>>4780433
>I feel as if the people around me aren't even real.

Sounds like narcissism. The only cure is to fake it.

>>4780277
Hopefully people with better grammar than yourself.

>>4780433
What do you mean by "not real"? You mean like not being themselves, right?

>>4773670
any book, no matter how good or bad, becomes painful to look at after analysing the living shit out of it

>be in 7th grade
>private school
>read books like Frankenstein, loads of unabridged Shakespeare, 1984, Fahrenheit 451, Walden, Ender's Game, fucking top-tier poetry for days
>teacher explains the difficult sections and not only teaches you what the book means but teaches you to figure out what the book means

If only everyone went to my old school.

>>4775327
I physically cringed at that picture for the first time in my life

>>4780453
>>4780444
I don't know how to put it into words, really. I have trouble talking/relating to people I'm only acquainted with, it feels to me as if they are all from some other "world", for lack of a better term, and I'm eternally on the outside looking in.

I guess, in general, I feel as though at times I don't even exist, as if I'm slowly fading away or something. In the same way I have trouble feeling "connected to society as a whole", I also feel that I'm just drifting through life, always one step behind, incapable of reaching out and 'touching' reality.

I don't feel special, I just feel so crushingly alone.

>twf living in a third world country
>in a mickey mouse college
>nobody reads anything exept 50 shades of gray or harry potter

hell.png

>>4775606

>everyone in this thread looking down on lit clubs that dont discus literature
>front page of /lit/ has bookshelf threads, life has no meaning threads, ebook threads, share idea threads, movie threads, young adult threads always hit 200+ replies, college life threads, never actual lit discussion

/lit/ confirmed for biggest hypocrite

>>4773364
Nietzsche
>pleb
Not transposing his sick mind to understand his writings, and seeing the deep irony between his earlier concept of seduction of language and his utopian ubermensch.
>tfw just rising above human trappings

>>4780433
I know these feels all too well

>>4780479
>I don't feel special

Narcissism isn't necessarily "feeling special", it's acting as if you're the only person in the room. You treat others as side characters in the movie of your life, hence the lack of connection. You're miserable, you're alone, you're eternally on the outside looking in...but it's all you you you. Nobody else is "real", everything is about your suffering.

>>4780479
You're in a good position to understand people better. Begin observing their behaviour more closely, and understand that you're a person just like them, and that yes they are meaningless, and so are you. You are slowly fading away, and so are they. Learn them better and you'll understand how to get everything you could ever want from them.
And DO NOT listen to >>4780614 too closely. It's probably what the establishment calls "narcissism", but don't think that's a bad thing. "Narcissism" (being self-focused), along with "sociopathy" (disregarding the feelings of others) and Machiavellianism (being manipulative to reach your goals), are the three best "personality traits" a man can embody.

From there, just learn which emotions are pathetic and which are not, and use them to your ends.

>>4780643
Ah, the good old "dark triad" from the Roissy blog. Surprising to see another one of his little beta sheep running around.

Interestingly enough, that definition of "narcissism" doesn't come from the "establishment", the establishment would have you believe that grandiosity/feeling "special"/better are mandatory symptoms, but that would discount a whole lot of other narcissists, just like this anon.

>>4780479

Can confirm what
>>4780614
>>4780643
said. I've read the entirety of this page here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism so I probably know what I'm talking about.

>>4775358

I have a couple campagnard.

>>4780719

I love these assholes who can't even get a hold of a cheap fucking plastic mask

>>4777825

>Nora Lovely

Holy fuck she is perfect.

>>4775665
Not the guy you were replying to, but I do smoke a lot of weed and completely despise potheads

>>4780762

pothead pls go

>>4780614
Narcissism is overly diagnosed in our culture because every narcissist thinks that it's about him. Also dfw who in a moralizing impetus decided invent a genealogy between his philosophical problems with solipsism and his believing himself a narcissist asshole, as if being a good person would make the question of other minds disappear.

What that guy is described is called dissociation which is a symptom that goes with many diseases from mood disorders, various personality disorders (schizotypal, schizoid) up to budding schizophrenia.

So please don't diagnose over the internet.

>>4777829
I don't understand why he's considered 'original' when he's just continuing a long enmeshed tradition from all the Salinger ripoffs (apparently there were a ton after Catcher came out, all faded into obscurity) to BEE and Co. to Ryu Murakami etc... In fact Korea has their own 'distanced literature' book which is tons more interesting because it does the whole alienated language shtick while bringing in Marxist theories and Bataille.

>>4780962
Because he speaks the language "of the internet" or something like that. Old critics want to feel young and relevant (even if the concept of relevant was probably invented by journalists of their generation) and the young kids are undereducated idiots who go into writing because they want to fuck and don't have the talent to make music (while writing is easy right? you just have to copy and paste your gchat convos, right?). I mean look at the idiots crowding roggenbuck's spreecasts.

As for korea's distanced literature I read When Adam Opens His Eyes and it was pretty damn good. Anything other suggestions?

>>4780923
>Narcissism is overly diagnosed in our culture

I can already tell you have no idea what you're talking about, because no it isn't.

>because every narcissist thinks that it's about him

Um, I think you forgot about the fact that actual diagnoses don't come from the people themselves but from other parties. Unless you meant that it's overly-self diagnosed. Which might be true, but it's overly self-diagnosed in the DSM-defined "grandiose/I am great", but then again ADHD is overly self-diagnosed so who cares?

>Also dfw who in a moralizing impetus decided invent a genealogy between his philosophical problems with solipsism and his believing himself a narcissist asshole, as if being a good person would make the question of other minds disappear.

As if being a good person would make the question of other minds disappear? Please rewrite this. This lacks context to the point of incoherency.

>So please don't diagnose over the internet.

I can't diagnose over the internet. It's 4chan. I'm shooting the shit.

>What that guy is described is called dissociation

Please don't diagnose over the internet.

>>4781007
I was thinking about that book though.

>>4781038
I'm not even gonna waste my time replying every point. I'll just explain the last sentence:

The problem of other minds is a philosophical problem that basically rotates around the claim that we have no direct proof that other people have minds.

Now DFW thinks that his questions about other minds originate in his ethical faults, in his self-absorption, in his narcissism and that if he was to redeem himself and live more altruistically the problem would dissolve. That's why he starts obsessing on narcissims and self-indulgence seeking in it a therapeutic relief.

>>4781068
Yeah, and? That's interesting that DFW did that, but what is your point in bringing it up?

Altruism isn't necessarily antithetical to narcissism. "Being a good person" will absolutely not make the question of other minds disappear, but that shouldn't even be a question to a grown adult.

>>4781093
By overdiagnosed I didn't mean medically but in media. Especially in some fringes of the literary culture where it seems that narcissism is the root of all evils and part of this is because of the attention that DFW gave to the term. So I was pointing out how dfw got the problem wrong and yet everyone jumped on the bandwagon without fully understanding the question.

>>4780433
If I'm disappointed in anything it's that the people in college still act like they're in high school. I figured everyone would have gotten the hint that education matters beyond the letter you get to put on your transcript. 90% of people don't even attempt to understand the content, they just want to know what they have to do to pass the class. This even applies to classes in their major.

I'm a STEM major and people think they can just shrug off the information in the early courses as if it doesn't matter and most of them seem like they're planning on doing it for the later courses as well. I mean, it's not like Business where the degree is all that matters beyond basic business math. Employers are actually expecting you to know this stuff. They don't give two shits about the the degree or your GPA if you learnt nothing from the class.

I guess it means less competition to me, but still.

Other than that, I guess I wish the environment was focused more on academics and less on athletics and school spirit, but that's what I get for going to a big sports university.

We do have this pretty big library with lots of books yet 99% of people just go there to use their laptop. Again, this isn't really a surprise.

I'm just glad I decided not to major in liberal arts. I can't imagine what I'd do if I actually had to pretend to care about other people's opinions even though I knew they were retarded.

This is one of the profs:
http://shumake.web.arizona.edu/

>>4780722
>>4780719
Bahahaha!

My sides have seceded from the union.

>>4781133
This is partly why I stopped going to college. Also anxiety. Couldn't listen to the teacher when I was busy worrying about everyone around me.

>>4780479
>>4780433
I know what you mean and I felt that way for a while towards the end of highschool.
What I think it is the experience of a "third culture kid", which is like when someone has foreign parents who've immigrated to a new country, so that the kid is caught in the middle between their parent's culture and their home culture, and end up identifying with a multiplicity of cultures rather than any single one; both within and outside any culture, not fully involved but also not nearly as distanced as a foreigner.
The difference is that instead of a foreign country, we've been connected to the internet as kids, developed and grown up on forums and irc, 4chan and wikipedia, exposed to a completely different world/culture than our home and parents.
It's easy to feel distant from everyone around you, intaking culture you've never been taught to take interest in, watching sports you never cared about, telling jokes in a totally different sense of humor, but eventually I met people who also share that feeling of a multiplicity, who went carved out their own paths culturally. Even if we don't share the exact same tastes, we share the feeling they're completely our own and our perspectives are fairly similar, that we can appreciate things in a similar, 'third culture' sort of perspective.

A writer who does a great job of capturing and embodying this sensibility is Vilem Flusser. Mainly has essays on media theory and art, but his stuff on nomadism (collected in Freedom the Migrant) are the most relevant.

>>4780479
Sounds like social anxiety and derealization. I know all these feels, bro.

>>4777430
>literary life

Im not arguing for comformism, Im just saying that he threw away an opportunity to meet some interesting people because they didnt measure up to some imaginary standard. OP would have grown way more as an author making friends at that party than he would if he actually did find a literary group full of people who shared the same interests. Leave your comfort zone a bit.

>>4781413
Interesting people are a social construct

>>4781428
ur mothers' pussies are socially constructed by my dick

>>4781404
I second the suggestion to read Flusser. Great author.

>>4781429
Your dad's cock has been repeatedly socially constructed by my tightboy rectum. God, the social construction...

>>4773524
I think you were misled by that guy's confrontational attitude. The way OP wrote his post makes me think he has some idea of "perfect" that he wants to spread to all areas of his life, where he wants perfect friends who are perfectly in tune with his tastes and interests. Look how he attacks those people! As if we could even consider the possibility of befriending someone who is a fan of Hunger Games, or who listens to EDM. OP's idea of perfect is a ridiculous, cartoonish simplification of a human, that a real person could never hope to live up to, which I guess he has formed from impressions of people on the internet.

>>4781453
Ah come on. You are making a straw man. There is a difference between decent and perfect.
He wants decent friends with decent tastes not the bottom of the barrel.
One thing is if he went and he was "ugh this plebs were reading portrait of an artist, I will only befriend people that are smart enough to read finnegan's wake" or if he passed on a club where people had interesting and varied tastes because a couple liked vonnegut.

But this was the hunger games, that's like accusing someone of wanting the perfect girl just because he rejected a date with the hirsute obese girl with sweat patches under her armpits.
That's not being pretentious or in your comfort zone, it's called having standards.

>>4780433
I have been forced to live with 11 other people in an army bunk as a part of mandatory national service for 4 months. I have realized that if you make those type of people real to you you will want to slaughter them in every single way possible (well some of them, there are those that are friendly and just choose not to live this sort of lifestyle and have their own things), pretty much like a bad marriage. I know now almost everything that goes on in the lives of 'normal people' and it feels really really insubstantial.

>Why don't you ever do shit instead of reading books in bunk?
>perpetual top 40s pop music played
>hear all of them talk about partying and whatever lives they have 24/7 and being perpetually judgmental at me for choosing to be a man of letters.
>realize finally that I never want to be that kind of person, that I will never compromise my ideals for a bit of 'social connection' and that I must always aim to be a pedagogue.

>>4781476
I think it's unhealthy to compare taste in literature in a potential friend to physical attractiveness in a potential mate.

>>4781492
Unhealthy is a big word.
I find it perfectly health. I find it perfectly health to care about the taste in literature in a potential mate.

As Adorno says "taste is the best indicator of one's historical conscience"

Taste tells a lot about a person's values, education, projects, personality and is a good predictor of how interesting or boring you will find that person on the long run.

So why is it unhealthy?

>>4781492
A person's taste makes up a big part of who they are, it determines what they spend a good portion of their time doing everyday and it shapes their personality. I don't see why taking tastes into account isn't important in determining compatibility.

>>4781495
I think it is unhealthy to pass off someone exclusively because of their taste in one area. What if the guy who listens to EDM shares your sense of humor? What if the girl who read the Hunger Games and loved it will be reading Kafka in 5 years, and under someone else's tutelage? I am of course limited in my knowledge of what exactly OP did, but from his account of what happened he seems extraordinarily haughty.

>>4781482
What do you do?

>>4781516
I was a recruit in training for the last 4 months. Our country has a mandatory law that all males at 18 must sign on for 2 years service before doing things like university etc...

>>4781516
But what if the girl who reads hunger games will never read kafka and you wasted time on her and lost the opportunity to meet that girl that loves beckett?

Life is short and you are not obligated to give everyone a chance.

>>4781546
Sure. But if you go to a meeting to meet new people, you shouldn't do so with unrealistic standards unless you want to be disappointed and lonely.

>>4781561
Is going to a literature club meeting and expecting to find people who take literature seriously really unrealistic?

>>4781561
Going to a literature club and expecting college kids to be reading something not written for teenagers is not unrealistic standards.

Also: he went to a literary club, not the "let's go drinking in town" meetup group. Maybe he already has friends but he wanted specifically someone to talk about the books he likes.

>>4781546
Call it a generalization, but you really have to wonder whether a girl that reads shit like that is even dateable.

>>4781572
>>4781580
You guys are probably right. It makes sense that he only went to find similar taste in literature, and his contempt for them was standard greentext fare.

OP you remind me of a friend of mine. He wants to be a writer, and has some talent, but he's so cynical and bitter toward plebs that he is extremely disconnected from people, and this is reflected in his writing. Sure, you don't have to befriend plebs and you certainly don't have to like them, but to be a good writer you need to understand and appreciate them, because they're real, every day people, and good stories include these types of people. They're plebs for a reason, and as much as you want to think that they're mindless drones, there is plenty of depth to their stories. So go engage with them, learn a thing or two about what makes them who they are, even if you're costanza.jpg'ing in your head the whole time.

>>4781583
lol'd

>>4781589
This.

>writing in pleb manner about pleb things
bad

>writing in patrician manner about pleb things
good

>writing in pleb manner about patrician things
good

>writing in patrician manner about patrician things
bad

When will you ever learn?

>>4781589
Here is what I was trying to get at with my first post (>>4781453), stated competently.

>>4775635
That's the point of this board. I come here so I can be a pretentious snob in peace and quiet.

>>4781607
Pretentious snob is the one type of asshole that doesn't get girls.

>>4781589
No they do not have 'plenty of depth' to them. The whole of their life has led to usually one or at least a few good stories which they relay to you at first. The more you get to know them the more flimsy and banal they become. Writers of the people only feign that depth; give them a sense of many pages of 'general humanity' when all they have is in fact possibly merely a verse.

>>4775365
this. I have a few friends, some of which are patrician, but I've come to really appreciate solitude over the past few years. I guess it's because I do more productive things than jerk off and play vidya all day

>>4781611
Girls are for plebs.

>>4781620
my god you are truly a specimen

>>4781626
Even if they did have that depth they would never have the poetic sensibility to voice it. The depth thus has to always be formed in our own heads, like the 'This is Water' lecture. The most tragic thing is that you know at some level they have minds but they act so droney that you never catch that glimpse of the true and beautiful because its always shaded by an overcomplication of base material and violent emotions.

>>4781611
Not true. I'm a pretentious snob and I had my fair share of girls. I mean once I dumped a girl because she told me that madame bovary has no character development. Also one time I tried to explain to a girl that I was cheating on her because "it helped with my writing."
But part of it might be also that I dress well and I'm tall, pale, dark haired and with green eyes.

>>4781651
>LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME.jpg

>>4777530
holy fuck you just described this one kid I've been hanging out with at school over the last two years. He's an alt-lit blogger like you said, has no knowledge of anything outside of what fits into his social trends, yet tries very hard to come off as an intellectual and looks down at pretty much everyone who doesn't fit the exist mold he desires. He's pretty unattractive, has god awful social skills, and is so fucking in love with himself that he is incapable of holding a decent conversation with anyone. That, and, like I said, he really doesn't know shit so that probably has a lot to with his inability to have a conversation lasting more than a minute. He's also one of those people who gets really flustered when you hate on something he likes, but is entirely incapable of defending it, and instead just tells you that you're "wrong".

>>4781651
top lols

>>4781657
>Being actually mad on 4chan

>>4781589
I grew up in a poor eastern european block. My childhood friends were 12 year olds that would get drunk daily and would still my money to buy heroin or speed. I've known my share of the real plebs and I can tell you that yours is just middle class romanticism.
The truth is that very few people have depth and most people spend their life without having a single opinion, never having a single thought, ground up to pieces by work and repetition.

If you know them you hate them.

>>4781658
You just described /lit/

>>4781666
>>>/v/
>>>/mu/
>>>/reddit.com/

>>4781635
>The depth thus has to always be formed in our own heads
This is the case with everything, though

>>4781671
you mad, mate?

>>4781677
>Better prove his point

>>4781676
That is why there is no obligation to get to know the plebs to be a good writer. It's just populism of the middle class, the wishful thinking that the average can be special.

>>4781676
Real depth can be glimpsed at times, in their speeches and all that. But I'm saying that once you know some people are enough they can't even allow for an illusion of a depth much less a glimpse into any real depth. They are perfectly and blatantly shallow. This applies to a lot of people who have the capacity to develop oceans for themselves

>>4781683
Sure, but it also means your entire tirade about the lack of depth in these people is rendered moot.

The original poster's
>but to be a good writer you need to understand and appreciate them
was probably what caused this entire argument.

>>4781690
Ah, I guess I mistakenly responded to >>4781683 as if he were you.

I don't know. I love watching simple people more than I do artful people. It's the nature of things that our predisposition towards something controls our perception of it, so I don't think there's any way for me to convince you of their depth, as you cannot convince me that they have none.

if you are not writing for them you don't have to understand them.

>>4773212
>umbrella, catch all lit club
What did you expect?

>>4781620
The plebs have a lot more depth to them then they know. It's not about the cool things that's happened in their lives, it's about how they've been shaped throughout their lives to be the plebs they are.

>>4781734
Just to be clear - in this context, what do you mean by pleb? Can you fully explain your idea of what separates plebs from patrics?

>>4781704

If you want to know though I'm
>>4781482

And I do still hold feelings about the uniqueness of the human soul and the possibility of beauty in men. Just that I believe that it must be cultivated and is not intrinsically apparent. I do believe that simplicity does not equal to a complete shallowness but for the most part it does work this way.

I've been interested in some of the stories I've heard of other people. For example how one of the people in my platoon became a rebel skipped school and worked as a bartender only to realize in one moment of epiphany (much like Dubliners) how much in the pits he was and how much he let down his family or about one of my other bunkmates talking about his childhood in Indonesia. Or the stories of my commanders and their experiences in officer school. I also loved the interweave of inside jokes, bonds and relationships that formed around the whole company. I loved at times their worrying about the future and the small-talk that permeated around the bunk. But like all bad marriages over familiarity and enforced living together bred a whole load of irritation and nasty backtalk and discontentment with how certain people lived their lives or their disposition and it all seemed extremely insignificant and directionless spray.

There was one of the most poetically beautiful moments though. A cloud iridescence appeared in the sky just outside our window and it seemed like a multicoloured garden just hanging in the sky. And that moment was so beautiful that it stopped all of them in their tracks, just witnessing one of nature's gifts without speaking of any human matters. We just basically stared for a couple of minutes and it gave me a certain kind of hope that they too had a kind of poetic sensibility within them. But of course that too would pass and the toil of life just came back.

>>4781133
I can't promise it's true of your university, but neoliberal administration is a plague spreading across American schools, both public and private. It's not just the presumptions of the students, for many of the largest and 'respected' universities, I think deans and professors are pushed to place economics above any educational ideal. The old maxim was that real education begins after highschool, now it's after your undergrad. I'm sure if I continue onto a masters, I'll be told everyone knows when one /really/ cares until their Ph.D.
The problem is, of course, the idea that you're supposed to go to college after highschool at all, most the idiots filling up universities, pumping them with money and filling up all the seats don't belong there, or wouldn't have in a previous era. Now, we all need a degree or else we can't even get hired as a secretary.
I think we've just been born into a time where the tensions of the old scholarly model and the new career training model have not yet been resolved (though I imagine the 'resolution' will come as an implosion or collapse). Not even the wealthiest of us have the option to skip over higher education, we've really no option but to accept the huge cost of our time and bite the bullet of sitting through the whole load of shit, and hope that here and there you might be lucky enough to fall into the lap of a worthwhile professor (though likely "bad" by the standards of the university and their average customer) for a semester or two.

>>4781879
neoliberal shit drips out onto intellect in latecapitalism - and intellect has been instrumentalized - soon we'll all be exploited like the lower classes, whether through the emotional labour of the service sector, the physical labour of real work, or intellectual labour of the coddled petit-bourgeoisie.

I applaud the escalation of decay. We're getting closer comrades. the barricades are coming.

>>4781879
nice summary anon. I agree.

>>4781589
>but he's so cynical and bitter toward plebs that he is extremely disconnected from people, and this is reflected in his writing.
There's nothing wrong with this. Harsh, critical view on culture and taste does seem to breed good taste in themselves, it really just means the standard is very high, even if impractical. And carrying that perspective doesn't somehow devalue the writing. I think we can agree this describes Thomas Bernhard or Nietzche, and I think we can agree they can be just as interesting and fun to read as whatever warm unaffected humanist prose.

>to be a good writer you need to understand and appreciate them, because they're real, every day people, and good stories include these types of people.
Jeez, look at this fucking pleb.

>>4781879
I'll concede that a neoliberal focus on pre-profession is ruining university if you concede that the progressivism of a burgeoning matriarchal totalitarianism is busily ruining whats left of the more esoteric liberal arts. they are two terrible forces both wreaking havoc on the university system.
I agree, in a century at least we'll probably have a split between the economic pre-professional schooling and the more monastic, elitist education. Has this already happened in Europe?
Combine this inevitable split with digitalization and MOOCs and stuff and we're bound to see some interesting things happen to the system. It's too bad we're in its shittiest stage.

>>4781907
you just compared "burgeoning matriarchal totalitarianism" to neoliberalism, as if what you made up is not only real, but equal to one of the most destructive ideologies of latecapitalism?

my god who let the plebs in?

>>4781907
Yes, progressivism and neoliberalism go hand in hand though you'd never hear anyone say it.

>>4781916
I did call them "two forces", not one. Neoliberalism ruins academic study with economy and efficiency and progressivism ruins it with feminism/identity politics, censorship and privilege-whining. I don't see why you can't call them both destructive late-capitalism ideologies.

>>4781927
you don't take a lot of actual social science or humanities classes in undergrad do you? You really can't compare a couple shitty classes offered each semester out of many many classes, maybe called 'women and work' or w/e, with neoliberalism...

>>4781931
I'm an English and philosophy major, actually, although I'm only a sophomore (but I did skip most of the intro courses because of AP credit). I'm in higher-level humanities courses right now, and I see it. Literally just yesterday in my 300-level history of rhetoric class I was subjected to a presentation about how the patriachy has historically used rhetoric to disenfranchise females, and my professor frequently focuses on how "sexist" the writers and philosophers we read are and how this makes them inapplicable but worth studying for history's sake.

They aren't really comparable or equal forces, maybe, but they are both equally destructive. Neoliberalism with its soulless economizing pushes pre-professional-track students through the intro humanities courses they give 0 shits about, and progressivism dehumanizes and subverts the humanities for shallow political utility.

>>4781946
>a presentation you didn't like
>rethinking the purpose and funding of every institution

uhhhh

>>4781905
What's that picture from?

>>4781905
What movie is this from? It's a Tsai Ming-Liang flick, isn't it?

Is it Vive L'Amour?

>>4781955
>a presentation
>implying he's not spending the entire semester with the teacher, him and the other ~3000 students she processes every a season

It's very common here in California. Imagine if they were projecting some conservative bullshit. Political propaganda does not belong in an educational institution. I'm in a UC, I assume at the Stanford level they're able to afford more intelligent professors. But then I assume above that, it's back to cold, hard economics.

>>4781978
Yeah, good movie. Good director.

>>4781985
Yeah I'm working my way through his works now. Any recs for similar directors? I've already watched all of Yang, KWW, and am going through Hou Hsiao-Hsien (Dust in the Wind 10.0 would feel again).

I specifically really like asian-house since it seems to address themes of loneliness/isolation/dealingwiththat pretty well.

>>4775305
>be marxist
Well there's your problem!

>everyone here sounds like rich/middle class white boys
>pleb gets thrown around the table, different def. One min it's a kid reading divergent, next...everyone around is a pleb.
>the elitism

>>4782004
Not that guy but I assume you watched Last Life in the Universe, Still Walking, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...Spring, other-hallmarks-that-I-can't-be-bothered-to-list?

>>4782045
Welcome to /lit/, now please kill yourself.

>>4782045
>everyone here sounds like rich/middle class white boys

If you're a rich/middle class Asian or Indian, you're "white," too.

>>4782045
Nobody cares about your pointless observation about nothing. The worst part is you are in all likelihood not even some eternally impotent, genetically cursed shitskin and have probably just been taught to parrot this shit by kikes you cannot even identify as actually jewish for little more than "brownie points". In any case you are a philistine and sicken me.

>>4782004
Not really, I plowed through the taiwanese new wave only a month ago, before a trip up to Taipei, but it was hard to find most of their stuff online. I'm usually not into the whole slow cinema but there's something very sincere and appealing about their approach. I haven't been able to find anything beyond those 3 (what does KWW refer to?). I liked Wayward Cloud more than Dust.

Have you seen any of Weerasethakul's stuff? I just watched Uncle Boonmee the other day and I enjoyed it a lot. Gotz Spielmann's Revanche is the closest I can suggest to Vive l'Amour (and Yang's The Terrorizers), a very subtle but well structured tragedy. Though it's incredibly german/austrian (not so much taiwanese), nor does it carry any strong sexual undercurrent. Pic not related.

>>4779487
I like you friend.
I suspect he misspelled some version of "bourgeois"
On an unrelated note, is Flaubert's prose as beautiful in the original French as we're led to believe?

>>4782053
>If you're a rich/middle class Asian or Indian, you're "white," too.

I hope you are trolling.

>>4782083
try

http://www.asiatorrents.me/

Their supposedly the best for Asian film, though you need to maintain a ratio. I don't have a PTP membership unfortunately so this and IPTorrents are the next best thing.

>>4782103
They're*

so sorry

>Take creative writing workshop.
>Class of ten with woman lecturer who starts talking about plot development and hero's journey.
>"Implying I read for plot," I shout through cupped hands.
>Class glares at me.
>"two thousand and twelve,"I tell everyone
>Teacher tuts and starts discussing character development in Harry Potter.
>"Do you even read?" I shout. "Go back to mew"
>Ginger man to my left tells me to shut up.
>"I bet you haven't even read Ulysses or Dee-Eff-Double-you" I tell him
>Class starts shouting at me, asking me to leave. It was all that ginger man's fault.
>I turn back to him
>"Your filthy roach. I bet you read fifty shades and genre fiction."
>He stands up and tells me to get out.
>"No," I said. "I'm the only real reader here. I read for prose, you're just a fucking casual"
>He hit me right on the nose, the cartilage cracks, blood sprays over my desk.
>I get up and walk out, grinning to myself at how superior I am.
>Filthy roaches. I bet they're talking about Kerouac now.

>>4782103
Thanks, that has a few things I couldn't find on rutracker.

>>4782103
>>4782216
Rutracker is the main site I use. It's pretty good, has quite a lot stuff in DVD9 quality. Just make sure that the original language is included, the russians have some urge to dub over everything, even the most random, obscure shit.

>>4782093
He may be, but I've heard worse ideas said honestly.
Did you know that the Irish aren't white?
It's true!
That's the only way the idea of "white privilege" can hold any weight.

>>4782120
>Two thousand and twelve
I chuckled

Curiosity is dead. Modern education killed it. So all you have left when it comes to readers are people that read stuff that can be called entertainment and the other which is people with some sort of intellectual chip on their shoulder.

What really bothers me is the lack of curiosity of those that call themselves or want to come off as readers of an intellectual sort. These are people that read maybe a handful of books a year and think of themselves as well read.

I think if you really love reading. You should give everything a chance. Even stuff that is labeled by your peers as crap.

Are most of you complaining Americans?
Attached is the facebook page for my English Society. They're not exactly the intellectual elite but they're neither too pretentious nor the tumblr fandom crowd. Could have been a lot worse.
inb4 someone inevitably finds a problem with them.

>>4782482
it seems like a bunch of kid's trying to pass a class. They are reading to pass and not to enjoy and experience.

>>4782491
Well yes, the majority are English lit students but I'm not sure it's necessarily reflective of what they read in their own time. I could be wrong. At least what they're learning about is at a decent intellectual level.

>Join campus Philosophy society
>Friends with president, he gets me in for free
>Go to first meeting
>It's at a bar, in a private room
>Everyone's sitting around, shooting the shit about philosophy and other stuff.
>Find out it's catered
>Also, free beer
>Interesting conversations on music and lit, as well as philosophy
>Go out for a smoke
>Bunch of the guys outside smoking weed
>One guy is either 40, or had an incredibly hard life.
>It's the latter
>The dude is fucked up but hilarious
>Also, genuinely intelligent people are way more interesting when they're high than stoners are.
>Spend most of the evening meeting new people
>End up having a great time
>This is a monthly event
Everything went better than expected

>>4773435
>>this one fat ginger dude wearing a scarf says "Infinite Jest"

That's the representative from /lit/ though.

>>4780433
Me too. The feeling is always there. Even in times of pleasure. It doesn't help that I have HPPD, I really don't know what to do with it.
Describing my condition would just fall into a bunch of cliches, I would only hope that anonymous 4chan readers would understand there is a genuine emotional purpose with these words however.

There is always some kind of underlining sensation that reveals itself once I try to think into it, to try and understand the feeling. And once that foundation is 'explored' it usually brings forward some kind of terror or angst that I cannot explain. I think it's a real problem, and it's powerful, something I've had for a long time. I describe it that way because it affects my body in really strange ways. Tension, in particular parts of my body according to a particular situation. As embarrassing as it is, it affects my penis as well.
A more obvious, and worrying spot (though i have conditioned myself not to care because there doesn't seem to be anyway out) is my neck which constantly tenses and untenses based on my current level of stress or anxiety.

Writing all of this stuff out like this makes it feel like less of a problem. That kind of feeling fades away does. Most of it usually goes away eventually, replaced by something else, or my mind shifts into a default dry, blank state of anxiety where I feel a loss of motor skills, self awareness/confidence, memory, and other things. I do not know how to gauge some of this stuff properly, especially memory, because I still get by day by day and the only things I forgot are short term. And that's with a lot of anxiety. its probably important to reflect its nearly 6am and i am heavily sleep deprived, that has a lot to do with my current emotional state and perspective on self. i still need help anyways dont hate me

I can almost look at all the people I know, even family, and describe the particular anxiety I might get with them. There is almost some kind of color present, a rich detail that describes my feelings. I think that's just a side effect of HPPD that makes me want to intellectualize this shit pretentiously

I know I went full diary mode but I just need to reach out to someone, and that guy's post (while also unrelated) sort of inspired me. Only looking for empathy. or advice. feel like ive only scratched the surface anyway

>>4782543
i jel

>>4781657
Well pretentiousness and narcissism attract like jazz musicians' heads and horse hooves.

>>4782606
Jesus

>>4779487
Here is your answer, frenchpussy: http://es.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bougie

>>4782846
its ok. ill live

>>4782120
Anyone have the Jazz version of this?

/lit/ real story post template:

>ask girl what she's reading
>judge and dismiss her
>come home and post on /lit/

>major in Philosophy, thinking to meet like-minded people to talk with
>there seem to be two groups of people
>one isn't intellectually beyond the angsty teen phase, blaming all their problems on the "evil government" and "fucked up society" of today, the soul-crushing "system"
>it's like talking to a 15 year old emo kid
>the other are pretentious fuckwads who find it necessary to namedrop a philosopher author every other sentence

>literally the first class of the semester, introduction to philosophy
>cave of Plato
>fucker asks question about how Plato relates to Hegel
Dude, are you trying to impress the professor or some stupid shit or what are you attempting?

I've made some friends but I usually don't try to talk about philosophy with them, I don't really like most of my fellow students.

>>4783016
>Dude, are you trying to impress the professor or some stupid shit or what are you attempting?
God I fucking hate that.
If it's not put down immediately, it's the professor's fault.
The class can either be debate style, where you go through theories and argue about the pros and cons, or it can be history of philosophy style, where the prof explains to the class what each philosopher covered thought.
Any time a prof allows a combination of the two, at least in my experience, it's been a fucking trainwreck.

>>4782045
see
>>4781665

>Finishing second year of English major
>Have never talked to another student in my English classes
I always told myself I was just slow to adjusting to the setting but maybe I have a serious disorder or case of the aspergers or something but it is exam time and I am so despondent.

>>4775716
Do not go gently into that good night, anon.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

>>4783027
Oh God, first year philosophy classes.
>Prof is briefly talking about some transcendentalist philosopher who proposes that some people (Christians) get teleological meaning in their lives by leading a life that imitates Jesus'
>You know, always being kind, showing compassion, helping other-
>Some fedora-atheist at the front of the lecture hall shouts out "And killing people who eat shellfish or are gay!"
I'm not religious (and neither was the prof) but I've never wanted to slap someone in a lecture more in my life.
The Prof handled it pretty well, he just said something like "I don't recall Jesus doing either of those things, but I could be wrong" and moved on.

>>4773336
how the fuck do I find one of these where I live?

>>4783076
Yeah, that's the way to handle it.
I always hated in the history of philosophy classes where someone would argue with the prof about the validity of some philosopher's ideas.
He's not here to teach you what's "correct" fuckface, he's telling you what these influential people thought.

>>4773212

Here's your lifeline, OP: take all the "theory"-based english classes that you can. they will be upper level, and called, say, intro to theory, for example. you'll meet the really interested readers at the university in these sort of classes

but if you go to a small or shit-tier college rather than a good university, you might be fucked. sorry.

Stop wishing for these fantasies. Your study group will be with the dead when you read them. You can be part of conversations that have been going on for millenia. Otherwise accept how others are and enjoy the different, sometimes simple, ways you can live with them. Enjoy being unreflective and sensual sometimes.

>>4783103
Not always. The theory classes were required where I went, so the shit heads were there too.
I had the best luck with niche subjects. Took a class solely on John Donne, it was about 50/50 dumb to interested, which is pretty good.

>>4782083
KWW is Kar Wai Wong (or is it Wong Kar Wai? I always get the name ordering confused)

If you havent seen any of his stuff I highly recommend it, it seemed to be something you'd enjoy.

I'll check out Weerasethakul and Spielmann as well, thanks for the recs, some of their films look pretty interesting.

>trip to taipei
jelly, ive never even traveled out of my country, and only traveled out of my state like twice in my life. I think it would pcool to rent a motorbike and go around Taiwan.

>>4782049
Haven't seen Last Life in the Universe, looks right up my alley, will watch later this week. Thanks!

>there is /lit/ as my friends
>then there are people who don't read as my friends, never heard of philosophy
>How did the path diverge? And why do people fall into one and not the other?

>>4782505
But that just reflects their curriculum, not them. If you'll see, the two linked articles posted are incredibly dumb. How do Novels Beguile? and a TED talk on 5 examples of how languages affect our thinking. And a 'meme' picture of craxy but grammatically correct english sentences. I doubt they read much.

>>4777607
>Gogol
>Zola
>Genet

hell yeah dude, let's talk books

>>4783172
Actually I'm not that into him. What I like about the taiwanese stuff is the camera work and everything they capture is so exquisite, in the same vein as Kitano or Cronenberg. What I've seen of wkw (days of being wild, chunking express & fallen angles) has just been okay love/action stories in semi-evocative settings and a sort ugly-indie aesthetic. They're nice but didn't feel like great movies, I never really saw the appeal. The whole dirty underground setting of Fallen Angels isn't interesting to me unless they're going to take the narrative to a legitimate extreme (sexual or violent).

There's something about weerasethakul, he's got a silly, incredibly sincere outlook. It's very charming. Just the other day I read Tilda Swinton mention absolutely loving Tropical Malady in her State of Cinema address, so I think I'll try and download it soon. I've seen a vietnamese movie, Scent of Green Papaya, that was kind of similar in spirit. You know, they just don't have any second thoughts about spending the majority of a film focused on cooking and eating, with character plots delegated to the periphery. Very different to the dumb sort of 'sincerity' of american indie shit that places everything on top of the characters.
Revanche is just an extremely good movie, perfectly constructed. Gotz had another thing come out last year that looks really good but I haven't been able to find it anywhere... It's nice to be able to chat about movies, I gave up on /tv/ a long time ago.

OH, Like Someone in Love is a movie you should check out too. It's by Abba Kiarostami, who a lot of people are into but it's the only one I've seen by him. Usually his films are made in Iran, but this one is set in Japan. It's very good, very subtle and sparse but doesn't feel slow at all, great shots of cars (pic). Closer to Dust in the Wind than Vive l'Amour.

Taipei was fun. Ended up very drunk in a masseuse parlor one night and received a happy ending from a Taiwanese princess.

>>4784204
>>4784204
Yeah I can see where you are coming from in terms of WKW.
Honestly, I tried rewatching In The Mood For Love and found that it didnt really compare to alot of taiwanese stuff. I think I'm just sentimental since WKW was my entry point into Chinese Cinema.

> Very different to the dumb sort of 'sincerity' of american indie shit that places everything on top of the characters.
Yeah, I've only recently started getting into what I dub "slice-of-life" films like Ozu, Yang, etc in the past couple of months because they are captivating in how they, excuse the cliche, "say so much with so little". There is such beauty in the subtlety, really, that it gets to the point where these films I watch seem to be more 'real' than the so-called 'life' I live, but I digress.

Yeah, /tv/ a shit, and not even in a funny way like /a/ or something. Most good discussions about film I have on /lit/, unfortunately. I think moot should divide /tv/ up into /film/, /celeb/, and /tv/, or something, but I doubt that would happen, or fix the problem in the case it did happen.

I'm downloading alot of the recs into my backlog and am looking forward to watching them while procrastinating for finals.

Are you a film major or something?

>>4773449