/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.14140857]

Is there a point to reading beyond entertainment? (Not including technical books or informative non-fiction of course) I personally don’t think there is meaning past aesthetics desu. I’m getting older and have been reading all my life, when I was young I used to read in order to find “meaning” or learn about different philosophical frameworks but looking back, that was all really just entertainment. I didn’t really “get” anything out of it other than enjoyment.

[Anonymous No.14140864]

No. Philosophy can be applied.

[Anonymous No.14141122]

>>14140857
There is meaning to be found through literature.

[Anonymous No.14141148]

Literature (as well as everything we do in our lifetime) should be done purely for enjoyment. The people who claim that there is a higher purpose to literature are mental gymnasts and deluding themselves.
The other day some anon claimed that if you reading for enjoyment is wrong and reading to "find truth" was correct. Just ask them questions until you realize how stupid they are.
>What do you define as truth?
>"Any ideology that I agree with!!"

>Why do you want to find "the truth"?
>"Because it gives me a sense of satisfaction and fuels my superiority complex!"
Also this isn't even mentioning the fact that you literally cannot be a good reader or writer unless you actually enjoy reading.

[Anonymous No.14141155]

>>14141148
>that if you reading
Forgot to erase "if you," should still be obvious enough to interpret.

[Anonymous No.14141170]

>>14140857
>Is there a point to reading beyond entertainment?
idk, it helps me think, there are things that I wouldn't have known without having read about them. For example different ways to view the world from different perspectives, things like that. I don't feel smarter, but I mean I have come to learn some new words, i forget what they mean sometimes but some i don't, and I sometimes get references other people use that come from Greek mythology. So I mean, there is something to get from reading.

[Anonymous No.14141175]

>To write with taste, in the highest sense, is to write with the assumption that one out of a hundred people who read one’s work may be dying, or have some loved one dying; to write so that no one commits suicide, no one despairs; to write, as Shakespeare wrote, so that people understand, sympathize, see the universality of pain, and feel strengthened, if not directly encouraged to live on. [...] The true artist is never so lost in his imaginary world that he forgets the real world, where teen-agers have a chemical propensity toward anguish, people between their thirties and forties have a tendency to get divorced, and people in their seventies have a tendency toward loneliness, poverty, self-pity, and sometimes anger. The true artist chooses never to be a bad physician. He gets his sense of worth and honor from his conviction that art is powerful—even bad art

[Anonymous No.14141262]

>>14140857
>Is there a point to reading beyond entertainment?

Is there a point to life beyond entertainment?

[Anonymous No.14141326]

>>14140857
>when I was young I used to read in order to find “meaning” or learn about different philosophical frameworks but looking back, that was all really just entertainment
Everything in life is really just entertainment

[Anonymous No.14141327]

>>14141262
No not really.

[Anonymous No.14141360]

>Is there a point to

There is no point to anything.

[Anonymous No.14141366]

>>14141148
>Why yes I'm an Aestheticist and Romanticist. Yes, I tell people about my passionate love for Virginia Woolf and show them poems I write. Yes, they laugh at me and no I do not justify my hobby to them. How could you tell?

[Anonymous No.14141389]

>>14140857
The answer to that question lies in the individual's own reading style. Outside of that, I think the rewards can be broken up three different ways, though there's probably better methods of expressing them or there could even be rewards I neglected to mention.

Assuming we're talking about literature:

1) New forms of expressing one's own thoughts to others or more orderly ways of thinking about what one observes. For example, Tolstoy and Borges were both very expressive in their writings. Tolstoy always made me personally feel like his characters were people who could genuinely exist because he left so little detail out. Borges was amazing at describing settings. Keep in mind I'm not extremely well read on either so I'm sure someone will disagree on something I've said about the two. I would say I feel enriched for having read some of their stories.

2) Philosophy is useful for understanding the ideas one holds or others hold about certain topics. Potentially enlightening to the self, or enlightening about others. Plus, by reading philosophical you get a window into the minds of fairly sophisticated individuals who gave their honest effort in expressing themselves about whatever issue that brought you to them. You would be hard pressed to get this kind of clarity from people in the flesh for many reasons.

3) The pinnacle of inspiration. When one reads a text leaves an impact on onself so profound that one changes oneself. I would say Margarita from Master and Margarita inspired me in this fashion. The unshakable love and devotion she had for the Master was exactly the kind of love I tried to exude in relationships in the past and failed to. But reading about a character who, with no hesitation, sold their soul for their only love? It filled me with determination to staying faithful to expressing that kind of passion in my own love life.

My two cents.

[Anonymous No.14141622]

[Anonymous No.14141710]

>>14141170
I like this answer. Bloom championed the ideas that reading leads to self-discovery, improved memory, a willingness to understand otherness.

OP stated that there is no meaning past aesthetics, and Bloom also hung his hat mainly on aesthetics himself.

I want to disagree with this though; we shouldn't base our entire evaluation of a work on it's aesthetics alone, even though aesthetics may be a significant part of what makes a work great.

I guess you need to define meaning to have this conversation, as people can find meaning in texts in many different ways.

[Anonymous No.14141753]

Oh look,
>another bugman that is incapable of understanding literature and art thread

[Anonymous No.14141758]

>>14141389
based

[Anonymous No.14142549]

>>14141753
How about you explain your big brain take instead of posting frogs faggot?

[Anonymous No.14142561]

>>14140857
For one thing, reading makes you much better at communicating your thoughts, but also just at ordering them in general.

[Anonymous No.14142594]

>>14140857
Read to feed the literary machine. The words you write will burn brighter the more fuel you have piled up.