/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.14538040]

Literary equivalents to capturing the feel of this image?

[Anonymous No.14538710]

bump.

[Anonymous No.14539388]

Bump.

[Anonymous No.14540283]

bump.

[Anonymous No.14541054]

Bump.

[Anonymous No.14541074]

>>14538040

How much longer will I be able to inhabit the divine sepulcher
Of life, my great love? Do dolphins plunge bottomward
To find the light? Or is it rock
That is searched? Unrelentingly? Huh. And if some day

Men with orange shovels come to break open the rock
Which encases me, what about the light that comes in then?
What about the smell of the light?
What about the moss?

In pilgrim times he wounded me
Since then I only lie
My bed of light is a furnace choking me
With hell (and sometimes I hear salt water dripping).

I mean it—because I’m one of the few
To have held my breath under the house. I’ll trade
One red sucker for two blue ones. I’m
Named Tom. The

Light bounces off mossy rocks down to me
In this glen (the neat villa! Which
When he’d had he would not had he of
And jests under the smarting of privet

Which on hot spring nights perfumes the empty rooms
With the smell of sperm flushed down toilets
On hot summer afternoons within sight of the sea.
If you knew why then professor) reads

To his friends: Drink to me only with
And the reader is carried away
By a great shadow under the sea.

[Anonymous No.14541118]

Wtf is that copy of jest

[Anonymous No.14541486]

>>14541118
She read it a lot.

[Anonymous No.14541511]

what's going on in that pic?

[Anonymous No.14541521]

>>14541511
it looks like she's rubbing that dudes infinite jest copy

[Anonymous No.14541539]

>>14541521
what a thoughtful lady, helping cleaning her friend's books. where can i find more of her?

[Anonymous No.14541697]

>>14541074
What is this supposed to signify?

[Anonymous No.14542273]

>>14538040
Based thread.

[Anonymous No.14542381]

>>14542273
this. bump

[Anonymous No.14542389]

"Books for this feel?" threads should be an auto-ban.

[Anonymous No.14542523]

>>14542389
what are the books for this feel?

[Anonymous No.14542540]

Bump

[Anonymous No.14542552]

>>14542523
This? What feel?

[Anonymous No.14542561]

>>14542552
the feel when you want feels threads to be deleted but they arent

[Anonymous No.14543661]

>>14542561
Mein Kampf

[Anonymous No.14543881]

It was cold, mid-November, bare trees and gray skies and all that. I was probably manic; I was feeling manic. Some YouTube video of David Foster Wallace got the idea in my head to go buy a copy of Infinite Jest. I didn't intend to read it, not really anyways, but for a couple of hours I really felt the need to have that hefty block of pages on my bookshelf.

I got in my car. My passenger seat was a mountain of fast-food bags, a jacket, a sweater. I ignored it in a way where I was fully aware that I lived in filth. My car turned over, I made a three point turn from my side-of-the-street parking, and started towards a local bookstore that I knew had two or three copies of Infinite Jest (if memory served). I was determined, excited, I also smelled; I hadn't showered in three days. That didn't bother me so much as the thought of bothering other people with my stench. I sniffed my armpits in the car. Though I didn't remember doing it, I had apparently put on a thick coating of Old Spice Original Scent deodorant. That eased my mind; I must've not smelled to terrible if that was there on my armpits.

The drive was quiet, not by my choice. My radio didn't work. I didn't have the money to get it fixed, or the money to get a lot of other things done. I thought about that, about the debt that I was in, upcoming student loan payments, groceries, some medical bills from last year, but it never conflicted with the fact that I was about to buy Infinite Jest. Maybe I could've spent that money on gas or something. No, Infinite Jest was the right move. He was so authentic in that interview, after all. I could probably learn a great deal from him. The light would shine through the pages, most likely, and I would become obsessed with the book, reading it deeply, and re-reading and highlighting and maybe writing something of my own loosely based on it. That had to be the way things would unfold; I could think of no other alternative.

I got to the bookstore. A bell attached to the door jingled on my way in, but the bookseller didn't look up. He was reading, which seemed appropriate. The store was separated into two floors: one in the front, which was the lower floor, that had general fiction and a small corner for local authors' publications. I walked over to that corner. The books were split between debut novels and poetry collections. Most of them were published with the author doing something nonchalantly on the cover, like drinking or walking down some set of railroad tracks or whatnot, and it all came off very desperate and pretentious. The average price was about $12. I flipped through one or two and nothing gripped me. It wasn't even worth making a mention about in some rambling recollection of what I was doing at a bookstore on a cold November (not that I would ever write something like that).

A three-step stairway in the middle of the building led to the second floor, which I hesitate to call a floor because it was really more like an elevated (cont...)

[Anonymous No.14543975]

(cont...) extension of the first floor. I was hasty in calling it a two-floor bookstore, then, and should've called it something else, like "an uneven warehouse of pages" or maybe "a store half elevated that is full of purchasable manuscripts." My mind doesn't think fast enough to phrase itself so well, I guess.

The wooden stairs creaked under my foot as I climbed the three stairs towards the back of the bookstore. The bookseller looked up for a disinterested second and then went back to his reading. I went down the isle which led towards "Classical Literature", which is where I remembered Infinite Jest being but that I somewhat disagreed with as I wasn't sure if Infinite Jest counted as a classic yet (though it was a best seller, which is more than can be said for other books in the classic section ("classic" and "best-seller" are not synonymous, of course, but have some overlap I suppose; one leads to the other though I am not sure which is antecedent)).

Infinite Jest was at the bottom shelf of the classics section, rested in the corner touching the adjacent poetry section that temporarily distracted me. I also noticed they had no music playing in the bookstore, probably to allow people to peruse pages in peace, but I considered it shortsighted - a tune makes a better shopping environment, after all, maybe, at least I think so. They had no Bukowski, which is the only poet I ever really cared to take interest in, so I moved back to the corner in which Infinite Jest was shoved.

I picked up the copy. A soft neon green lettering spelled out the title, with little clouds over a blue sky in the background. It was $7. I was expecting it to be more expensive; classic bestsellers (if they are either, one, or both of those, separately or simultaneously) are usually more expensive. I noticed there was an inkstain on the top of the copy which didn't seep down into the pages but most definitely disqualified it from being a "fresh" copy. That explained the price, I thought. I turned around when the doorjingles jangled and a mid-40s woman walked in. The bookseller waved and asked if he could help her find anything, a treatment which I didn't get. I didn't necessarily want that treatment, I suppose - I'm rather asocial - but I found myself jealous that she got some commercial attention that I didn't. I tucked the copy of Infinite Jest under my arm and looked around the rest of the second floor (or section, back-elevation, however it should be called).

The middle aged woman loudly asked if the bookseller had any sci-fi. I was looking at a collection of Kafka's short stories. I had never read Kafka. The bookseller said he had some. They went on and on within a conversation that boiled down to:

"Do you have this author?"

"We have X and Y by him"

"Oh, I've already read X."

"What about Y?"

"I'm not too interested in Y right now - do you have anything by this other author?"

I tried not to pay attention, but it was very quiet in the store, (cont...)

[Anonymous No.14544016]

>>14543661
This and The Bible

[Anonymous No.14544066]

and they had no tunes to drown out surrounding noise or to accompany your quaint shopping trip. I kept looking at the Kafka book, flipping through, reading maybe half a paragraph, then flipping again. My real consideration was whether or not this was a pretty enough copy to really buy, which I ultimately decided it was, especially for the price of $4, which I thought was incredibly low for not having any inkstains on the edges of the pages or anything like that.

I now had two books. The woman left without buying anything. I'm sure that annoyed the bookseller after all of his investment in her sci-fi-searching. I approached the counter and slid my two selections forward to indicate that I was ready to exchange currency for the collection of literature.

"Ah, this ones a real piece of work" said the bookseller, looking down the nose of his glasses which had a beaded strap connecting the two ends and running behind his back. Before I responded, I thought that the bead-strap was rather effeminate and I wondered if that was some sort of gay thing, if he was gay, if the bookseller was gay, but then I responded as if I hadn't just thought the bookseller was gay:

"Yeah, a bunch of my friends are raving about this book. I figured I'd give it a whirl."

This was a lie; I had no friends raving about this book. I was buying it because I saw a David Foster Wallace interview on YouTube. But you cant really say "I'm buying this because I saw one David Foster Wallace video on YouTube" since you'll just be laughed at and consequently never be able to show your face in that bookstore ever again.

"Yeah," said the bookseller, "a lot of the university kids read it because they feel they have to, I think. I mean, its a good book, don't get me wrong, but yknow..."

I nodded and said something in agreement automatically. Somehow we got in a short conversation in which we talked about gimmicky books. I mentioned Ducks, Newburryport (Newberryport? Newburyport, I think). He seemed to have never heard of it. I told him he wasn't missing much, even though I'd never read the book myself and didn't actually know exactly how much he (or I) was or was not missing. The total was $15.73 somehow. I paid with a debit card. He said good day and I very quickly forgot about our conversation - except for the fact that I lied about having friends that liked Infinite Jest. That stuck, for some reason, and I thought about that like while I drove home with a copy of Kafka and Infinite Jest on top of a McDonalds bag which was on top of a sweater which was crushing a Taco Bell bag. At the first stop sign, I tried to size up the length of the introduction - about 15 pages noted in roman numerals - then the light turned green and I put back the book and pressed the gas pedal while turning my steering wheel to the left (which was the way I needed to go if I was travelling home, which I was).

(cont...)

[Anonymous No.14544147]

>>14543881
>>14544066
>>14543975
I like this

[Anonymous No.14544258]

When I got home, I rushed to my room. I put Kafka and Wallace on my bookshelf and stared at Wallace for a while. One would think I'd crack open one of the two, but no. I wasn't excited about either of them, in all honesty. I had them - that was the point. I had them and they were mine, and if someone ever saw that I had them, there would be a 75-80% chance they'd assume I'd read the books on my bookshelf - not because of any generous judgement on my aptitude, but mainly because doubting me would be a chore, and vocalizing that doubt wouldn't be a polite thing for a guest to do (not that I entertain guests or let them into my room which contains my bookshelf).

I opened up my laptop and began to distract myself from the rest of the day. My adventure was over and I was now the owner of a bestseller which was arguably also a classic. I spent the rest of the hour watching pornography, something I enjoy very much. My favorite pornographer is Chanel Preston. Her proportions are amazing, and her legs are really what get me off. Even though the legs are probably the most masculine part of the body, which may point to some latent homosexuality or some unconscious will to be dominated by a much stronger female, I could still convince myself that I was watching her because of my virile heterosexuality. I finished myself at the top of the next hour to a video of her taking on two men who's penises were larger than mine to the point where it upset me and slightly detracted my orgasm.

I cleaned myself up and looked at my bookshelf again. I noticed that, on a bookshelf, Infinite Jest sticks out. I mean, really, really sticks out. Its just so there, so present, a real gargantuan tome with a catchy contemporary design. None of the rest of my books could even compare. I lifted it from the shelf and thought to myself that it was time to scan a few lines. I skipped the introduction. "Year of Glad." (new line, onto the first sentence:) "I am seated in an office, surrounded by heads and bodies." I lost interest very quickly and began flipping around randomly, found nothing, then put it back on the shelf. It looked better on the outside than the inside, so far. I went back to my laptop.

I can not chain my pornography habit like I did when I was young. Being older now, I have to wait at least a couple of hours before I can go again. This makes a space of boredom. I usually smoke cigarettes in that time, or run to the gas station to buy more cigarettes or beer, or I drink beer and smoke cigarettes, and occasionally I put on a nice Radiohead album on my speakers and drink beer and later smoke a cigarette. I chose a nice album by The Dismemberment Plan which I had discovered in high school, grabbed a beer, and surfed the world wide web, the internet, the virtual space, my tunnel of infinite entertainment.

First was YouTube. In my histroy was that David Foster Wallace video - the play marker was left in the middle where I had stopped watching. (cont...)

[Anonymous No.14544315]

>>14544258
I will wait anon

[Anonymous No.14544339]

>>14544258
based legfag

[Anonymous No.14544352]

I didn't care to finish it. I was attracted to a TikTok compilation that had a thumbnail of three dancing young girls. They, these girls, dress up very promiscuously and it entertains me. I clicked on the video. It was 15 minutes of mostly moderately funny gags that would please any normal person watching. Relatable content about phones falling on your face or staying up too late. Luckily, just before I realize these are meant to appeal to teenagers, one of those attractive young beauties come up and I end up rewinding the video a couple of times to see them prance and dance and shake around. It is an exciting way to make time go by. It pleases me, makes me forget whats around me, which is nothing much at all really. I'm not missing anything, I don't think. I don't make plans, I don't often go out and I have no one to be accountable for, so I just watch teenage girls dressed up as cartoon characters jiggle to short clips of music. This goes on usually for about 45 minutes, or three or four compilations. Then I am in my surroundings again.

I looked around my room. I'd been sleeping on the floor recently, a pillow and blanket taken from my bed which was presently occupied by an impressive amount of old clothes. I'd been meaning to go through them. I didn't fit in most of them; I'd recently gained somewhere around 80 pounds from a depressive episode that was still going on (hence why the pile stayed as a pile on my bed and was never taken care of). It was 7:39PM. I had no work the next day, and if I really wanted to, I could clean up my act a bit, get back on the ball, stop smoking cigarettes, re-establish old connections and get healthy again, but something told me that going out to smoke was a much better option. Considering that one could be done immediately, and that the other would take a prolonged effort of will and purpose, I chose the former.

I went to the backside balcony of my second floor apartment. I had a chair and an ashtray out there, which were both full by the time I sat down. When I'm sitting down and smoking, I often think about things. I think about things like my family, or old memories, how I was when I was young, who I'll be if I keep going in this direction. Normal things. I dont think about how the world should be run, though I definitely have opinions on it. Jeff Beezos is running for President this year. I hear he is doing quite well in the debates that I dont watch. I won't have to think about voting until next year, of course, so I have plenty of time to be ignorant.

I finish my cigarette. On my way in, I walk past the shower. I think about taking a shower. I dont take a shower. I remember reading somewhere that it takes a sort of narcissism to lather yourself up in soap and caress your own body. I dont know why that passage comes up every time I think about breaking my three-day no-shower benders. I usually rely on hitting a breaking point the night before work where I feel so gross that I have to run water (cont...)

[Anonymous No.14544446]

(cont...) over myself. My record is a week and a half, which may not seem like much compared to people in water-scarce countries in Africa, or places with lesser hygiene standards like the poorest parts of Southcentral Asia, but when you're where I am and you work and rarely go out in the middle of the night for something to eat, people really start to notice. Some part of me wants to care, but the part of me that likes to swallow up pints of apathy at a time (which might be the same part that is willing to spend 45 minutes at a time watching young girls on short video apps) is much, much stronger. Accordingly, I walked past the shower and back into my room.

The first thing I noticed in my room was that beautiful copy on Infinite Jest sitting on my bookshelf. I sat by it in my office chair. Taking off the shelf, I bobbed it up and down to get a sense of its weight. Very heavy, for a book at least. The Dismemberment Plan was still playing, now on "The City", which is one of my favorite songs. I wondered if David Foster Wallace had ever heard of The Dismemberment Plan, or if he had committed suicide before that. I then had a long fantasy about driving in my car (now clean and with a working radio) with David Foster Wallace listening to The Dismemberment Plan. I imagined myself saying something like "These guys, THESE guys really have some content. Their lyrics, just PACKED full of meaning." and David would pause to listen and eventually agree with a smile, maybe even tell me that I had great taste in music - but I didn't imagine that part, since that would just be too masturbatory. I still had Infinite Jest in my hands. The song slowed. I opened to a random page:

"But then in equally paradoxical contrast have a look at the next Advanced Basics speaker - this tall baggy sack of a man, also painfully new, but this poor bastard here completely and openly nerve-wracked..." I closed it. It seemed interesting, but I just didn't know what was going on. I would have to start from the beginning of that book to get that far again, which seemed exhausting. (cont...)