Art

[Anonymous No.12094071]

What piece of literature has affected the very core of soul, such that after experiencing it your life or outlook on life distinctly changed paths? I don't mean that it was simply beautiful and provocative, but rather that it effected a revelation with life-altering implications that you previously had not understood.

[Anonymous No.12094079]

>>12094071
William Shatner's TekWar

[Anonymous No.12094085]

Unironically Culture of Critique and The Bell Curve
t. former liberal

[Anonymous No.12094105]

>>12094071
I can only think of the Bible, as a work that has truly changed me.

[Anonymous No.12094106]

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XK1HF4T

[Anonymous No.12094130]

>>12094079
Ron Goulart's TekWar

[Anonymous No.12094186]

my diary desu

[Anonymous No.12094187]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_and_His_Symbols

this was a bomb detonation in my head

[Anonymous No.12094196]

>>12094071
None. I haven't read that much though.

[Anonymous No.12094202]

>>12094196
thanks for this valuable information

[Anonymous No.12094217]

>>12094071
Book of the New Sun. Severian's thought patterns infected me like a virus.

[Anonymous No.12094393]

>>12094071
The Bible

[Anonymous No.12094406]

>>12094071
Kant and Hegel.

[Anonymous No.12094409]

The Law by Frederic Bastiat

[Anonymous No.12095295]

>>12094406
I doubt it

[Anonymous No.12095349]

Rape of Lucrece, made me realize I was a fucking pseud that judged things by their outward appearances rather than actually understanding them. Started the thought process that led me to drop out of seminary.
Also Greene’s The Heart of the Matter. Pointed out to me that the “virtue” of many people is only their self- conscious stubbornness. The world seemed a much colder place after reading that

[Anonymous No.12095374]

>>12095349
>drop out of seminary
wow

[Anonymous No.12095384]

>>12094071
what a beautiful work of art. inspiring. i also love the one with the veiled face

[Anonymous No.12095462]

>>12094071

>Secret Affairs: Britain's Collusion with Radical Islam

Being British and living in Hong Kong most of my life, I was always wound up about the way Beijing kept dicking around in HK politics, thinking about how the UK was better etc. but after reading this and becoming aware of various evils and douchebaggery of the British government, I very cynically saw (and still do) all governments as completely identical; they're just amoral organisms doing everything they can by any means to obtain power to survive, and holding loyalty to one strikes me as utterly pointless.

That was more recent, and although not literature, 4chan has changed my understanding of the world more than anything else I've read. Discovering it during my uni years, it helped me to understand how people really thought behind the endless masks of politeness.

[Anonymous No.12095514]

>>12095349
>Rape of Lucrece
I just read the 3 paragraph synopsis in Wikipedia and seems pretty mundane. Has it got any hidden essence besides good rhyme ?

[Anonymous No.12095561]

The Phantom Tollbooth when I read it aged 8

The most stirring thing I've read recently has been the speeches of Amilcar Cabral, but didn't change me.

[Anonymous No.12095596]

>>12095462
>That was more recent, and although not literature, 4chan has changed my understanding of the world more than anything else I've read. Discovering it during my uni years, it helped me to understand how people really thought behind the endless masks of politeness.
Good post

[Anonymous No.12095597]

>>12095514
>Has it got any hidden essence besides good rhyme ?
Of course there’s more to it than the plot and the meter, it’s classic poetry.
Lucrece’s issue is that she doesn’t understand that the experience of being a certain thing is different than the impression the outward appearance of that thing makes. She’s surprised that Tarquin would rape her because he was so polite; she can’t understand how someone so innocent- looking as Sinon could lie to the Trojans; and, most centrally, she’s more concerned with the outward appearance of chastity (not seeming like a slut) than with the inward virtue (having heartfelt devotion to her husband). That’s why she kills herself in the end- she doesn’t want to go on with her tainted reputation or to be a “bad example” for other women even though she, her husband, and her father all acknowledge that she hasn’t done anything wrong and that her virtue can “cleanse” the “poisoned well” that is her defiled body.
There’s a lot more to it than that but that’s the central theme.

[Anonymous No.12095621]

>>12095462
>it helped me to understand how people really thought behind the endless masks of politeness
Anon don’t project the thoughts of bitter and jaded 4chan incels onto the normal people in your life.

[Anonymous No.12095660]

>>12095597
Thanks anon. Do you think the text would pique your interest if the behavior/value judgment it is structured around was something you considered a given?

[Anonymous No.12095727]

>>12095660
It would probably pique my interest either way. I don’t think the original point was that Lucrece exemplifies objectively good behavior/ values. The standards of behavior for a powerful Roman matron were much more strict than those for the wealthy women of Shakespeare’s time.

[Anonymous No.12095881]

>>12095727
I mean, maybe your sensitivity on religious-moral issues of sin and self blame made the subject matter very appealing? In the same way e.g. I feel very drawn to modernistic alienated schizo spectrum characters, but some moral issues of the past leave me indifferent

[Anonymous No.12095957]

>>12095621

I don't. There's endless drivelling trash that's spewed here, but from time to time you find meaningful posts spoken in earnest. Reading 4chan correctly means skipping past 95% of posts until you find the odd intelligent one.

[Anonymous No.12095962]

>>12095881
evil and self- blame are pretty universal human experiences. Shakespeare’s tackling of these abstract things, not the specific moral issue (“should I kill myself because I was raped?”) is what makes rape of Lucrece interesting. I don’t see how any story could avoid dealing with these things on some level, even a modern story about a schizo loner

[Anonymous No.12095973]

>>12095957
That’s true, but still 4chan has developed a niche culture appealing to a specific kind of person. I don’t see how it can tell you much about the secret thoughts of people in general.

[Anonymous No.12095987]

A confession Tolstoy

[Anonymous No.12096098]

>>12095973

> has developed a niche culture

When I started the whole place was nothing but troll culture. I had never understood that kind of person, but came to understand more points of view. Blinding hating people I've never met never made sense to me, but hearing whatever pol or whoever sprouts these days at least helps me to understand why others think they way they do.

If there's a socially acceptable opinion, it'll be heard from everywhere whether you want to hear it or not; if there's a socially unacceptable opinion, it can only be heard on 4chan or similar.

[Anonymous No.12096114]

>>12095973

> has developed a niche culture

When I started the whole place was nothing but troll culture. I had never understood that kind of person, but came to understand more points of view. Blindingly hating people I've never met never made sense to me, but hearing whatever pol or whoever sprouts these days at least helps me to understand why others think they way they do.

If there's a socially acceptable opinion, it'll be heard from everywhere whether you want to hear it or not; if there's a socially unacceptable opinion, it can only be heard on 4chan or similar.

[Anonymous No.12096127]

>>12095973

>>12095973

> has developed a niche culture

When I started the whole place was nothing but troll culture. I had never understood that kind of person, but came to understand more points of view. Blindingly hating people I've never met never made sense to me, but hearing whatever pol or whoever sprouts these days at least helps me to understand why others think the way they do.

If there's a socially acceptable opinion, it'll be heard from everywhere whether you want to hear it or not; if there's a socially unacceptable opinion, it can only be heard on 4chan or similar.

[Anonymous No.12096148]

>>12094071
Plato's Apology

[Anonymous No.12096196]

>>12094071
Fear and Trembling

[Anonymous No.12096211]

You are describing the Divine Comedy.

[Anonymous No.12096222]

Schopenhauer's World as Will.

[Anonymous No.12096223]

>>12094071
Plato's Apology

[Anonymous No.12097327]

>>12094196
Genuine kek

[Anonymous No.12097447]

>>12094071
As far as authors go, Nietzsche has had the most profound impact on me. Seconding him is probably Dostoevsky, and third, maybe Poe.

[Anonymous No.12097474]

>>12097447
Actually, scratch that. Heraclitus is second, Dostoevsky is third.

[Anonymous No.12097957]

Prometheus Rising turned me from an atheist to an agnostic which jumpstarted my journey back to Christianity

[Anonymous No.12098036]

Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and Derrida

[Anonymous No.12098249]

>>12094071
Not a piece of art per se but generally renaissance culture had a big impact on my ideals.

[Anonymous No.12098301]

>>12094071
tristram shandy

[Anonymous No.12098304]

for conspiracy theories in general

[Anonymous No.12098344]

>>12094071
Bible
Ressentiment by Max Scheler
Deus Caritas Est by Pope Benedict XVI Emeritus
Leftism: Revisited by Kuehnelt-Leddihn
Inferno by Dante
After Virtue by Macintyre

[Anonymous No.12098346]

>>12094071
Crime and Punishment. After reading the epilogue and the scene where Raskolnikov gets down on his knees and confesses I was floored. Raskolnikov seemed very much like me as I too left college and hid myself away in a dark corner away from society. I have done many bad things in my life but this book rekindled my hope for forgiveness. I know Bergman is kinda disliked on here but Block from The Seventh Seal spoke my thoughts on an Omnipotent and loving god, "Out of the darkness we call to thee, O Lord! Oh, God have mercy on us! We are small and afraid and without knowledge!"

[Anonymous No.12098407]

Morandi. he showed me the greatest joy and sorrow to be found in unity and separateness. also, immobility and stillness isn't death, there's a tremendous energy and potential in the most serene.

[Anonymous No.12098452]

sorry to sound like a meme, but desu it was The Picture of Dorian Gray. First book that made it clear to me that beauty had nothing to do with truth (fuck u Keats).

[Anonymous No.12100023]

Bible
Don Quixote
Anna Karenina

They didn't really change my path but they changed my perception of my path

Well desu Cervantes and Jesus saved me from killing myself so I'll give him that

[Anonymous No.12101775]

>>12098407
based

[Anonymous No.12102267]

Stephen King's The Stand

[Anonymous No.12102384]

>>12102267
Stephen King books and their respective JoJo Stands:
>IT
Death 13
>Dark Tower series
The Emperor
>Christine
The Wheel of Fortune
>The Mist
Justice
>Misery
Love Deluxe

[Anonymous No.12102444]

Brothers Karamazov & the Bible I suppose
Maybe Shakespeare just in the sense of references to him being woven into English

[Anonymous No.12102495]

Pic related is the only thing that has changed my outlook so significantly. Dostoyevsky (I've only read Notes and C&P so far) is also important to me, because he understands the way I think and his work reminds me that I'm only human and that I should be humble.