/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.17313381]

what books do you regret reading?

[Anonymous No.17313399]

>>17313381
Every book on this chart

[Anonymous No.17313405]

>>17313381
horns by joe hill
fucking garbage

[pip No.17313414]

anything with bad grammer

[Anonymous No.17313450]

No Longer Human. It was hyped up way too much, every sentence disappointed me but set me up for something better with the next one, and this continued in a loop until I got to the end and just said "What the fuck was that?" out loud.

[Anonymous No.17313468]

My diary desu

[Anonymous No.17313485]

>>17313381

[Anonymous No.17313586]

I used to read a lot of ‘traditionalist’ philosophy, particularly Evola and Pascal. I started out as a general libertarian, then went on to become this sort of utilitarian/Straussian cultural Christian, then started really delving into traditionalism and JQ stuff, and the more I dove into, the more I got this feeling for deep worry in the back of my head, of things not being right, that I was doing something that maybe felt ‘good’, but was actually deeply immoral and wrong.

So I would say that I really regret reading the Pensees and I think Ride the Tiger, to get me on this path that could’ve been very destructive. Luckily I got off of it, got my act together and now am more of a left wing anarchist, which is really much more in line with the original sentiment I started with at the very beginning. All I have to say to you guys is this: don’t lie to yourself. You might think it’s ‘pragmatic’ or ‘expedient’, but time always catches up with you to reveal that it’s none of those things

[Anonymous No.17313598]

>>17313381
Industrial society and its future, good thing I read it in a day

[Anonymous No.17313600]

>>17313381
the iron heel by jack london. enjoyed his later work but HOLY SHIT is that one bad. you cannot make a more mary sure character than his protag.

[Anonymous No.17313633]

>>17313450
This, it felt like I read nothing.

[Anonymous No.17313648]

>>17313586
>got my stuff together
>now I’m a left wing anarchist
Dude. Also, are you insinuating that traditionalism is pragmatic? Bro. Also...choosing ideaologies and identifying off of ideologies....LARP ALERT and or underage alert

[Anonymous No.17313658]

>>17313381
War and Peace, Anna Karenina, Kafka on the Shore, Stoner

[Anonymous No.17313669]

>>17313648
>Also, are you insinuating that traditionalism is pragmatic?
Yep, sorry to break it to you bud, but many so-called ‘traditionalists’ just use it to channel their fear and anxiety for a rapidly changing world into a worldview that appears to be highly systematic, but really isn’t when you study it critically.

That’s okay though, I was once just like you, you’ll get there eventually

[Anonymous No.17313678]

>>17313648
>LARP ALERT
That's the average Evola reader/tradfag for you

[Anonymous No.17313684]

>>17313381
East of Eden. Utterly mediocre, melodramatic dreck.

[Anonymous No.17313747]

>>17313381
Kings and Cabbages

[Anonymous No.17313759]

>>17313747
Cabbages and Kings*

[Anonymous No.17313772]

None, if I don’t like a book I drop it

[Anonymous No.17313900]

>>17313381
A lot of Evola

[Anonymous No.17313918]

>>17313684
Just watch the movie. James Dean is so cute.

[Anonymous No.17313925]

>>17313772
Careful, if you bend a corner or fold a page the bookstore goblin will ding you for that

[Anonymous No.17313970]

>>17313669
You don't often see a person grow spiritually and mentally to such an extent as you did

[Anonymous No.17314048]

>>17313399
then you didnt understand it

[Anonymous No.17314063]

>>17313381
>17313381
Guns, Germs, and Steel
Anything written by Malcolm Gladwell

[Anonymous No.17314973]

>>17313381
pointless shortsighted flawed observations, i read with the intention to remember noteworthy insights - found none
>La rouchefoucald Maxims

[Anonymous No.17314993]

>>17313658
explain?

[Anonymous No.17315248]

>>17313381
In Watermelon Sugar. That book creeped me the fuck out and left me with a slimy, dissociated kind of feeling. I've since sold all my Brautigan.

[Anonymous No.17315310]

Atlas shrugged
to kill a mockingbird
an unkindness of magicians

[Anonymous No.17315416]

Bhagavad Gita. What a snooze.

[Anonymous No.17315473]

>>17313399
the shallows is the most boring fucking book I've ever read. If you're curious about it's contents: "Excessive internet use decreases your attention span and capacity for deep focus." Just saved you ~3 hours

[Anonymous No.17315494]

>>17313381
>Ch. 11: Erotics and Aesthetics—Sex and Character

[Anonymous No.17315514]

>>17313450
This desu

[Anonymous No.17315525]

>>17313399
New Dark Age is uneven but good, I can see how it would make you seeth if you're a STEMfag though.

[Anonymous No.17315526]

>>17313381
The Bible, a complete waste of fucking time.

The Quran on the other hand.

[Anonymous No.17315551]

>>17315310
Man, I went to this weird conservative Christian High School and we had to read a lot of Ayn Rand. The only one of her books I kind of enjoyed was Anthem. Mostly because I was very much into scifi at the time, but we couldn't even finish Atlas Shrugged it was so bad. the teacher just gave up trying to make the class read it half way through and switched over to something else.

[Anonymous No.17315572]

>>17315551
>conservative Christian High School
>we had to read a lot of Ayn Rand.
What the fuck?

[Anonymous No.17315579]

Richest Man in Babylon
"do not spend your money retardedly also save some money lol"

[Anonymous No.17315586]

>>17315494
explain

[Anonymous No.17315591]

>>17313669
>you’ll get there eventually
Pic related is just about my pace
>”Xism is reducible to this psychological phenomenon—it’s just your inner insecurity bro, it’s just your repressed instinct bro, you’re just scared bro”
>rapidly changing world
Nothing is new under the sun lad. Nor is your take on the matter anything new either. Look I like to mock on the so called “traditionalist school” since I am not a member, and have your standard Catholic worldview in keeping with our own exoteric Tradition—but your critique reeks of faggotry. You and your >>17313678
>>17313970
Henchmen need to go back, dilate, the usual procedure
>you’ll be an atheist soon, just give it time bro
As if I was religious for the purpose of being contrarian, or a contrarian subconscious urge, which many of the “traditionalist school” do indeed practice, so you have reason on that point I believe

[Anonymous No.17315617]

>>17315586
That schoolgirl QT I took a nonsexual sideglance of pure admiration at which inspired my mortification and self-improvement ritual—was but a false idealization and projection of my idealized self on that girl, the continuance of intellectual offspring, so it was no more purer than if I was to take a sexualized glance, I was still making sacrifice to the fallen angels.

[Anonymous No.17315623]

Stoner

[Anonymous No.17315655]

>>17313381
GoT and all of that series. They were edgy and new when I was in middle school but now that they're an adult I hate them so much, and I find people super into Martin's books to be cringey.

[Anonymous No.17315657]

>>17315572
Is this not normal at Christian Schools? I know conservatives intellectuals have wet dreams about Ayn Rand.

[Anonymous No.17315658]

>>17315657
Rand is an atheist tho, and more of a libertarian than a conservative, that's why I found it weird

[Anonymous No.17315708]

>>17313381
Heart of Darkness

[Anonymous No.17315717]

>>17313381
The Alchemist, bunch of faggy feel-good bullshit.

[Anonymous No.17315735]

>>17315708
Why? Hated it the first read. Loved it the second read. Adored it the third read. Kurtz is the ultimate coomer archtype. Too strong to die in the jungle just off the riverbank, so he presses forward into the true darkness, and the darkness consumes and feeds him and he becomes one with evil, as the weaker men before him had all passed. Alas he succumbs at the end and realizes the terror of it all! No he was invincible. Every archcoomer dies of an STD eventually, even if he was immune and went passed the acne-sloth-pallid stage into SEXVIGOR LIKE NO MAN HAS SEEN. IVORY COOOOOOOM. The coomer dies early on...the archcoomer survives and becomes stronger. Then there is the Russian clown enigma...riding the fine line of perfect moderation. Loved that lil’ dude.

[Anonymous No.17315737]

>>17315658
My school was religious but was also very highly politically motivated. We had to go to Church twice a week and on Sunday independently, my teacher prefaced our biology class with, "None of this is true but we need to teach it to you so you can graduate." but we also watched Fox news every morning, confederate flags were allowed and unofficially encouraged on some days, republican party reps would come by to recruit for their youth groups, stuff like that. So this was very likely a part of that, but I mean Conservatives and Libertarians have a lot in common.

[Anonymous No.17315742]

>>17315735
>*not invincible

[Anonymous No.17315751]

>>17315737
Do prots really? Lul

[Anonymous No.17315755]

>>17313381
The first critique.

[Anonymous No.17315785]

>>17315751
Nah, it wasn't a protestant school. Just Catholic. We had one Protestant kid in our class and everyone sorta avoided him because of it. Thinking back it was pretty fucked up.

We even had a couple of Buddhist kids, because it was the only private high school in the area, and I remember on the first day of class the Sister we had as a teacher was showing them what to do when we went to mass, and she handed them the little communion wafer, and they both said that they probably shouldn't eat it. She told them that they had to and basically said that they'd be in real trouble if they didn't. So like 20 minutes later, after eating it, they both threw up everywhere for some reason, and the Sister said it was a true act of god.

[Anonymous No.17315790]

>>17313381
the house on mango street.

[Anonymous No.17315874]

>>17315785
>So like 20 minutes later, after eating it, they both threw up everywhere for some reason, and the Sister said it was a true act of god.
ha ha jesus fuck

[Anonymous No.17315879]

>>17313586
>So I would say that I really regret reading the Pensees

Wow. I'm sorry for you, anon, that you regret reading a book that tells you to realize what's going on around you and not to distract yourself with trivialities.

[Anonymous No.17315898]

>>17315755
why?

[Anonymous No.17315905]

>>17315785
>they both threw up everywhere for some reason, and the Sister said it was a true act of god.
Absolutely based nun. I wish that we had more convents.

[Anonymous No.17315906]

>>17315898
The idea that the thing in itself is unknowable and that metaphysics is a dead end is depressing to me.

[Anonymous No.17315940]

>>17315248
filtered

[Anonymous No.17316015]

The Fitfth Season - NK JEMISIN

3 Hugo awards later and its still the worst book I have ever read.

[Anonymous No.17316156]

>>17315623
Explain?

[Anonymous No.17316167]

Got through the first chapter of American Dirt and still pretty sure that was a mistake.

[Anonymous No.17316188]

>>17315785
the holy corpse rejects the heresy of east

[Anonymous No.17316879]

>>17315526
Is also a boring mess

[Anonymous No.17316900]

>>17315737
>my teacher prefaced our biology class with, "None of this is true but we need to teach it to you so you can graduate."

[Anonymous No.17316974]

>>17315879
>a book that tells you to realize what's going on around you
Right, but that’s just the thing, as time passes, you slowly realize that it actually does none of those things and that this ‘realization’ overlaps highly with your own preconceived notions and biases.

Like I said, you’ll get there eventually, and realize that there’s a difference between books that tell you what you need to hear and what you want to hear. There’s a massive difference between the two, but I really wonder whether you or any ‘traditionalist’ on here is willing to admit to this distinction. The conspiracy bullshit to maintain the worldview tells me you’re not

[Anonymous No.17317219]

>>17313399
same for me, almost

also infinite jest, ligotti

pretty much the only fiction i have liked that is discussed on here is lolita and, conditionally, dostoevsky

[Anonymous No.17317245]

All the GRRM GoT books.

[Anonymous No.17317266]

>>17313648
yep

>>17313669
i don't think you're informed enough to make that assessment if you are uninvolved technically.

the more science math and engineering i learn about the more deeply i believe that it's our human nature from which the grotesqueness emerges, not technological development in itself. i guess you would think I'm being overly optimistic.

[Anonymous No.17317329]

>>17313381
crime and punishment

[Anonymous No.17317601]

>>17313381
This pile of shit. Had to read it for A level literature. Jane Eyre was bad, and this came off as a poorly made fanfic.

[Anonymous No.17317621]

[Anonymous No.17317760]

>>17317266
You didn’t even read my original post. I specifically said that’s how I started out, as being religious for pragmatic reasons, you know, the whole ‘it keeps society stable’ stuff. Then you find out that in many ways it doesn’t do that at all, and then secondary considerations begin to take over. First it’s ‘why is this?’, which will be the human nature stuff you refer to. Then that doesn’t change anything either, and the question becomes ‘who could be behind this’?

I can’t even begin to tell you how much you’re in just the early stages of your belief path. Right now, you’re where I was years ago, right around the time when the anti-SJW stuff began to take off. Trust me, you have a lot left to learn

[Anonymous No.17319111]

>>17317621
I regret this one too, kept waiting for it to get good and then it ended.

[Anonymous No.17319128]

>>17316974
>Like I said, you’ll get there eventually, and realize that there’s a difference between books that tell you what you need to hear and what you want to hear.

Yes, because this is exactly what I want to hear:

>Imagine a number of men in chains, all under sentence of death, some of whom are each day butchered in the sight of the others; those remaining see their own condition in that of their fellows, and looking at each other with grief and despair await their turn. This is an image of the human condition.

It is so comforting!

[Anonymous No.17319215]

>>17319128
If you live in despair, that’s in fact exactly what you want to hear. After all, the alternative is far more terrifying, which is that you have no idea what’s going on.

Again, this pontificating of how you’re one of the few though enough to face up to the ‘real’ world is almost verbatim how I used to think. If I were able to unearth many of my posts on /pol/ and under some cringy identitarian ‘they stole this from you’ with some tradchick dancing in a field video on Youtube, you would literally find sentiments like the one you just described.

Some things aren’t tough to weed out the unworthy, they’re tough because they’re simply inaccurate. Again, you will find out all of that in a few years, I can guarantee it

[Anonymous No.17319229]

I love my computer because my friends live in it by Jess Kimball Leslie
I bought the book for $1.06 from a Dollar Tree. Absolutely horrible! I don't even know why I read the whole thing.

[Anonymous No.17319259]

>>17319215
I doubt it, anon. For one, I never took the black-pill that it sounds like you did, nor did I get heavy into right-wing politics. I have always been relatively moderate there.

But the need to come to grips with our own mortality, and find whether or not there is a consolation to our inevitable death? That's certainly something that we should take time on, and most other interests and occupations should seem rather trivial compared to that.

For what it is worth, I read Pascal as Pascal talking to me, not about how Pascal or I am so much more in tune with reality than anyone else. The internal lives of others are of lesser importance here (within reason; ultimately I think the only thing worth doing in this world is being good to and loving others; but I read Pascal to remind myself of some basic facts that are easy to ignore, not to feel superior to others).

[Anonymous No.17319367]

>>17319215
I don't give a shit about politics
But everyone deep down feel different from other people. Mind is the representation of the universe so I can't help but think that I am the centre of the universe. The condition of I makes everything a selfish act. No one can escape this simple fact of life.

[Anonymous No.17319377]

>>17319259
Look anon, you can stop lying to me, because none of this shit works. I’ve read Pascal, but more importantly, I’ve interacted with the types who are attracted to this kind of thinking. The themes you repeat are roughly the same themes that are prevalent within traditionalist ways of thinking. All you’re doing right now is just trying to find cosmetic differences so that you can distance yourself from me.

I even know why you do this. You want your side to be neatly divided between confessors and traitors. It’s simply not how the world works anon. As someone with more experience than you, I can highly advice you to let go of this stuff. This stuff isn’t reality, and never will be, no matter how hard you try. Time will always catch up with you. You can have as many echochambers with as many true believers as you like. You too will have to face up to the cracks in your system of sensemaking, and they’re cracks you can’t paint over and then pretend they’re not there

[Anonymous No.17319396]

>>17319377
>I even know why you do this. You want your side...

Anon, there are no sides; rather, there is only one.

Good luck to you. I sincerely wish you well and hope that you are happy.

[Anonymous No.17319440]

>>17313381
every russian lit ie dosto turgenev tolstoy fucking trash

[Anonymous No.17319560]

>>17313586
>left wing anarchist

[Anonymous No.17319632]

I really disliked reading miss peregrimes house for peculiar children. Had it sitting on my shelf and wanted to read it as a taste-breaker after I finished some obligatory literature. It was beyond simplistic and the main idea was parents bad, weird persons you met a week ago best

[Anonymous No.17319642]

>>17313381
none, no story is not worth hearing

fuck off

[Anonymous No.17319692]

The witcher books past sword of destiny

[Anonymous No.17320027]

>>17319396
>Anon, there are no sides; rather, there is only one.
This is almost to the letter a phrase I used to use. All you do with posting these ‘smackdowns’ is confirm my suspicions that you think exactly like how I used to a few years ago

[Anonymous No.17320078]

>>17313381
i gave up around page 75 after a simile about photographs that was so stupid i just couldn't go on

[Anonymous No.17320107]

>>17320027
You:
>You're reading all this to make yourself feel superior to everyone else. I used to do the same thing, and would talk about how 'they' stole this from you.
>I used to post about how there are no sides and we're all part of the same world.

I mean... OK. It seems that your thought a few years ago was at odds with itself. I guess I'm happy for you that your new left-wing anarchism is better for you mentally than whatever philosophy you subscribed to previously. It does seem, though, that through all your phases you've never really given up your own sense of superiority, or your urge to proselytize.

[Anonymous No.17320117]

>>17313381
None
t. Eternally recurring son of a bitch

[Anonymous No.17320224]

>>17315735
annual deaths from syphilis in the USA have been between less than 50 since 1998, anon. no one dies from STDs

[Anonymous No.17320230]

>>17320224
What about the aids?

[Anonymous No.17320236]

>>17315785
you're lying, the unbaptized are not allowed to take communion. that's a hard rule

[Anonymous No.17320243]

>>17317621
the only worthwhile part of this were the other, better books cited

[Anonymous No.17320250]

>>17319367
unironically you nee to read crime and punishment

[Anonymous No.17320252]

>>17313381
"Lab Girl" is the worst book you'll ever read

[Anonymous No.17320267]

>>17320230
AIDS isn't fatal anymore, just a chronic condition. and in any case the bulk of HIV infections come from IV drug use these days, it's not 1983 anymore

[Anonymous No.17320269]

>>17320267
Oh no kidding. I did not know. I guess I won't bother wrapping up next time I'm out carousing.

[Anonymous No.17320287]

>>17320269
haven't you wondered why you haven't heard a constant stream of AIDS propaganda in the media for at least a decade now?

[Anonymous No.17320304]

>>17320236
It's only a real communion wafer if it's blessed first, otherwise it's just bread. You can go on amazon and buy like a whole box of 1000 for like $20 and eat them right now and even according to the church all you would've accomplished is overindulging on carbs.

[Anonymous No.17321355]

>>17315785
>So like 20 minutes later, after eating it, they both threw up

This is just like the dumb - and doubtless apocryphal - story in Angela's Ashes.

No nun at some imagined hyper-conservative Catholic school would do this, btw.

[Anonymous No.17321516]

>>17313381
Murakami's catalogue of mystical manchild bullshit, Phenomenology of Spirit, gay Naomi Klein climate change books, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, 2/3 of Atlas Shrugged, that shitty Sapiens pop anthropology book, Nick Land's masturbatory bullshit, John Zerzan's autistic hippie essays.

[Anonymous No.17321601]

>>17320107
>It does seem, though, that through all your phases you've never really given up your own sense of superiority, or your urge to proselytize.
This has nothing to do with being superior, or proselytizing. It’s about trying to prevent harm in others who I see going down the same self destructive path as I did. Proselytizing implies that I have this calculated strategy to get people on my side for some hidden motive I don’t tell you about. I really don’t. Not everyone is out to sell something to you, some people do things without the need to make others feel like they owe him one

[Anonymous No.17321610]

>>17313399
why? I was planning on reading Society of the Spectacle and the Buadrillard works

[Anonymous No.17321625]

this board
my diary

[Anonymous No.17321784]

>>17317760
Damn, you come off as a big pretentious retard.

[Anonymous No.17322485]

>>17316900
To be fair, they kinda do it now in ultra woke schools.
“Let’s talk about the male and female reproductive systems. But also male and female are outdated concepts, and sex and gender are both not binary.”

[Anonymous No.17323012]

>>17313381
Yukio Mishima's Sea of Fertility tetralogy for baiting me into years of resentful, death-worshipping nihilism.

[Anonymous No.17323019]

>>17323012
It's probably your fault if you're that frail to be taken in by a wholly boring tetraolgy.

[Anonymous No.17323031]

>>17323019
The first book is excellent... the rest are average. The last one is laughably bad.

[Anonymous No.17323047]

>>17313399
have you read any of these? lmao

[Anonymous No.17323073]

>>17313586
I can only hope this post is ironic

[Anonymous No.17323121]

>>17321601
>>17319377
>>17319215
>>17317760
>>17313586
Holy shit, you are the definition of a smug, midwit psued. How do you even stomach yourself?

[Anonymous No.17323126]

>>17321601
I went down the same path as you even went full left wing anarchist. Trust me, as someone with way more experience then you it doesn't work. Kill yourself now.

[I hate women No.17323375]

>>17313485
Call of the Arcade is easily the best

[Anonymous No.17323528]

>>17313381

The Fourth Hand by John Irving. Trash book. Borning with unlikeable characters. I think the author thought he was writing something interesting, but there's almost no growth in any of the characters. The book reads like a Wattpad fanfiction with the main character falling into every pussy he comes across.

There's one section of the book, a couple of pages, where the main character's ex sees the protagonist on tv, and it just describes how wet she's getting. Then it shifts over to her 18-year-old schoolgirl daughter's perspective as the daughter fantasizes over the protag. And then we never see or hear from these characters again. That whole scene of the mom and daughter standing next to each other getting wet does nothing for the story.

The plot could literally have been a porno plot. "Oh, I think my husband will die, so I'll donate his hand when he does to this one-handed guy I saw on TV. Wow, my husband died a day after I said that, now I can give away his hand. 'Thanks for the hand lady, let's bang'." That's basically a rundown of the story. It's stupid.

Before anyone thinks, "oh man, sex scenes, Imma wack off to this." You can't. The scenes aren't written to be "sexy" like some erotica story, they're just boring.

The book fails to tell a good story, fails to have interesting characters, fails to be erotic, it has no saving graces.

There was also a weird racial thing, I don't think Irving has ever met an Asian.

I think it's in the movie the Day After Tomorrow when the survivors of the apocalypse are in the New York Library burning books to stay warm. If I ever found myself in that situation, The Fourth Hand by John Irving is one book I wouldn't regret throwing into the fire for a second.

[Anonymous No.17323876]

>>17313381
My diary