/lit/ - Literature

>>7150883
Kafka is a meme tbh.

>>7150883
But you've finished them all?
I'm actually first wondering why you would go through The metamorphosis if you haven't "understood" it. Or maybe you intuitively caught something, or got a feeling from it?
Did you actually like those books, without understanding them?
Did you have to read it for a class or something?

>>7150922
I've read The Metamorphosis because I knew it was an important book in world literature and I also heard it was good.
I can feel the book is an allegory, that it has a hidden meaning, but I can't understand what Kafka is trying to tell me

(the others are short stories)

you're dumb but everybody has been dumb at least once

try harder, read more, or drop it

Just keep reading other stuff that you DO get and enjoy (as long as its at least a little challenging, you won't get "dumber") and maybe you'll start seeing parallels with what Kafka was doing. That's what happens to me whenever I only halfway understand a "great" work - I let it sit with me, do other shit, while its relevance slowly reveals itself to me. This is what defines a great work, instead of just a really awesome or good one; even if it's obscure at first, the meaning just builds up on itself over time, and all other good works just add to the pile of what made it so great in the first place.

>>7151012
>everybody has been dumb at least once

Words to live by.

>>7151041
Thanks for that. You enlightened the shit out of me.

>>7150883
If you want to understand a book better, bring a pen and highlight lines that illict a response in you. Think about why and how, maybe even annotate that.

Understanding is just conscious reading. And it get's easier and more rewarding with every book. Thank yourself that you have the stamina to read so much, which is rare these days, and continue trying to learn.

Is anyone else struggling to solve these fucking impossibly blurry "street name" captchas?

>>7151041
This. Also, with time, you can discover things, evolve...some books won't mean anything to you when you're 20, but when you're in your 30's, suddenly you might look at it from a totally different angle and figure out a way that feels right for you.

>>7151059
yes, and yes about the captchas too. Fuck, do i prefer when there are none...i feel like i'm a hamster doing tests or some shit.

>>7150883
you should have started with the greeks

>>7151059
That's some good advice.
Follow that advice.

>>7151460
You know google monetize all the captchas?

I'm not sure how they use these ones, probably to filter image searches, but in the old ones we'd be collectively translating old English texts. Not even joking.

>>7151059
>Is anyone else struggling to solve these fucking impossibly blurry "street name" captchas?

I just do the sound one, or miss on purporse so google gives me a "select food lol" captcha, fuck helping their googlemaps shit with this crap.

>>7151004
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E9aOuf6eI8 explains it

the main character works day and night just to support his leaching family that he becomes inhuman, literally.

Mom's gonna freak!

>>7151584
wow google works in mysterious ways...

>>7152133
lol pretty hilarious.

OP here
so you're saying I don't have to give up and keep reading until I understand it?

>>7154261
Just read a study guide on it or some shit OP, if you're reading well known classics there's likely to be tons of analytical commentary on it already. Supplementary material never hurts if you really want to "get" the text

>>7150883
Did you at least understand it on the basic level - as a story - and enjoy it?

Honestly that is the only requisit for enjoying these works.

>>7152133
It has nothing to do, dont know why most people try so hard. You only have to read what was Kafka facing at the time to understand the story.

>>7151004
Stop trying to read meanings into things. That's so high school and it will make you a worse reader.

No actual good writer goes, "let me hide this deep meaning in this story!"
Kafka thought of his stories as comedies.

>>7150883
Hey OP, I'm in a Lit Crit. class right now and I've found that a lot of kids in my class were helped by reading out assigned text, "Texts and Contexts: Writing About Literature with Critical Theory". Though it's dry at points, it helps you understand what it means to be a "close reader," and how to interpret different texts in a variety of ways.

We actually went over Metamorphosis in class, and I can definitely see how someone who has only ever read from a Reader-Response, Impressionistic, or Moralistic viewpoint might be baffled, compared to someone who reads Kafka with a Russian Formalist mindset.

It never hurts to get help! Even Stanley Fish is clear about the idea that meaning of a text is made by the text's "interpretive community."

>>7154352
based grisha

>>7154372
honestly, I secretly hope that people recognize me by my commonly used pics, this summer i was posting daily

>>7151059
>defacing bookiewooks