/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.19874292]

Why read the books of someone who failed at life?

[Anonymous No.19874322]

>>19874292
To learn from their mistakes.

[Anonymous No.19874324]

Most writers did

[Anonymous No.19874330]

>>19874292
>wrote incredible books
>made lots of money
>had lots of sex
>died due to illness

How is that failing at life?

[Anonymous No.19874350]

why does it matter?

[Anonymous No.19874371]

>>19874330
No children and left his magnum opus unfinished

[Anonymous No.19875188]

>>19874292
Why not ?

[Anonymous No.19875193]

>>19874330
>illness
He was a mentally weak faggot who killed himself

[Anonymous No.19875232]

>>19874330
>sex

With whom?

[Anonymous No.19875238]

>>19875232
Audience pussy

[Anonymous No.19875240]

>>19875232
With tons of young qties.
>>19875193
He had clinical depression.

[Anonymous No.19875247]

>>19874292
What does your definition of winning at life look like?

[Anonymous No.19875248]

>>19875240
>clinical depression
Made up “illness” by Big Pharma

[Anonymous No.19875256]

>>19875248

[Anonymous No.19875261]

>>19875193
>Wallace's father said that David had suffered from major depressive disorder for more than 20 years and that antidepressant medication had allowed him to be productive.[19] Wallace experienced what was believed to be a severe interaction of the medication with the food he had eaten one day at a restaurant,[20][63] and in June 2007, he stopped taking phenelzine, his primary antidepressant drug, on his doctor's advice.[19] His depression recurred, and he tried other treatments, including electroconvulsive therapy. Eventually he went back on phenelzine but found it ineffective.[20] On September 12, 2008, at age 46, Wallace wrote a private two-page suicide note to his wife, arranged part of the manuscript for The Pale King, and hanged himself from a rafter in his house.[3]

[Anonymous No.19875268]

I just love Wallace's non-fiction. If you know any other authors like him please let me know.

[Anonymous No.19875274]

>>19875238
>>19875240
>audience pussy
>young qties

How u know this anons? I thought he had a dear wife?

[Anonymous No.19875279]

>>19875274
Literally just Google audience pussy. DFW will come up as the first result

[Anonymous No.19875284]

>>19875268
Gass was very influential on his non-fiction.

[Anonymous No.19875311]

>>19874292
So this isn't a DFW thing but I really do not like the implication that anyone would engage in art because it's "useful" in any way. Important and meaningful, yeah, but useful is like... no... no no no no no no no no no no

[Anonymous No.19875325]

>>19874292
Name 3 writers who are chads in real life.

[Anonymous No.19875465]

>>19875325
Franz Kafka
Sylvia Plath
Bruno Schulz

[Anonymous No.19875511]

>>19875274
Wallace was known for fucking his students kek

[Anonymous No.19876178]

>>19875325
Me, DFW, and Norm Macdonald

[Anonymous No.19876262]

>>19875311
this. this board needs to be reeducated.

[Anonymous No.19876459]

>>19874292
everyone worthwhile failed at life, like napoleon and hitler

[Anonymous No.19876474]

>>19875248
Nah it's real. Loads of people die from it.

Touch grass.

[Anonymous No.19876605]

>>19874292
>Why read the books of someone who failed at life?
>Why read books that aren't morally didactic?
>Why read books that aren't immediately practical in the quotidian?
>Why read anything other than mechanical engineering textbooks, chicken soup for the soul and jocko willink grindset posts?

[Anonymous No.19876658]

>>19874292
Because if he's a lot smarter than you (which he is) than u gotta whole lotta thinking or choosing to not think at all to do

[Anonymous No.19876662]

>>19876658
meant to add "and he still killed himself" after "than u"
just clarifying so i dont sound more schiz than am

[Anonymous No.19876800]

Big Pharma switched his meds because The Pale King was going to show how the IRS was taken over by Drug Reps. Look into it.

[Anonymous No.19876834]

>>19874292
Did he regularly wash his headgear?

[Anonymous No.19877239]

>>19874292
he succeeded at writing good books

[Anonymous No.19877259]

>>19874371
>No children
Artificial measure of success
>left his magnum opus unfinished
Basedurce?

[Anonymous No.19877274]

>>19874330
I agree completely. The guy was very succcessful. His downfall was simply a bad diet. He ate too much salt and drank too much alcohol and killed all the good bacteria in his gut resulting in depression (two types of bacteria have been identified as missing from people with depression). And his diet wasn't even chosen. He just ate what everyone else was eating.

[Anonymous No.19877305]

>>19875311
Arts useful? Reading Proust can make a man stop simping over the wrong woman, reading dosto can help soothe a troubled soul, reading poetry can get you out of bed in the morning. This idea that art is useless in life shows a arbitrary dichotomy that mistakes use. If our interpersonal relationships (or lack of them) constitute the main challenge of our lives then a medium which records these misadventures necessary has a use. If our minds are tormented by metaphysical fears (all fears are equal illusions veiling the presentiment of death therefore fear in a metaphysical god weights the same as fear of not being able to pay rent) then art that can effect these ailments, not fix, effect has a use. If you value you internal subjective reality (not asking if it exists just if you endow it with importance) then you understand art as the most useful prism to interface with.

[Anonymous No.19877325]

>>19875311
>The meaning of USEFULNESS is the quality of having utility and especially practical worth or applicability
art has been more useful in my life than a lot of technology

[Anonymous No.19877343]

Is IJ a book that I can just read a chapter per week? Or is it something I should concentrate properly?

[Anonymous No.19877374]

>>19875274

[Anonymous No.19877389]

>>19877274
>two types of bacteria have been identified as missing from people with depression
where did you learn this thing?

[Anonymous No.19877411]

>>19875311
I used my guitar skill to impress a girl in HS and fucked her later. Your point?

[Anonymous No.19877422]

>>19877343
it's a book that you should finish in one sitting

[Anonymous No.19877492]

>>19874292
Because success in postmodern society is an act of compromise characterized by cowardice. For some people, "succeeding" means giving up parts of yourself that you're just not willing to part with. I don't know how anyone could look at the living poster-boy of success, Jeff Bezos, and go, "Yeah, I want what he has." I'm only really interested in the failures, because the failures have a much better chance of being the kind of independent, original thinkers I like to spend my time with. You can keep your supplicants and panderers, your chasers-after and charismatics. DFW was a rare fucker, and he brushed up against the Sublime more than a couple times in his writing, that stuff which shines lightless in the dark and burns without heat. He knew something you didn't, and something you'll probably never know until you've got a mouthful of ash, at your deathbed looking back on a life chasing material and status like a pillar of salt.

Fuck success, fuck this dull, inhuman world of material and economics covered in its thin veneer of sparkling cell phone screens. Fuck you.

[Anonymous No.19877499]

>>19877492
Blah blah weak cope

[Anonymous No.19877506]

>>19877499
Weakness is going with the flow. It's participation in the world that has been arranged for you in its intended capacity. Strength is something else.

[Anonymous No.19877509]

>>19874292
Ask Mark Fisher fanatics the same question

[Anonymous No.19877515]

>>19877492
What zero pussy does to a mf

[Anonymous No.19877607]

>>19875193
>implying suicide isn't actually a sign of mental strength

[Anonymous No.19877620]

he didn't like Vineland so fuck this guy

[Anonymous No.19877635]

>>19874292
he was playing on hard mode

[Anonymous No.19878195]

>>19876474
No. You’re just a mentally weak pussy.

[Anonymous No.19878321]

>>19877492
You're right. Don't listen to those other jews

[Anonymous No.19878528]

>>19877492
/thread

[Anonymous No.19879079]

>>19877492
Based.

[Anonymous No.19879364]

>>19877259
>Artificial measure of success
It's the most natural form of success in the world, Anon.

[Anonymous No.19879371]

>>19878195
You are projecting your own insecurity and weakness, faggot

[Anonymous No.19879408]

>>19874292
Because he's a genius

[Anonymous No.19880408]

>>19875261
>Wallace experienced what was believed to be a severe interaction of the medication with the food he had eaten one day at a restaurant

sorry what? how could you fathom that food is interacting specifically with your medication in that way? just stop eating that food then? funny how when you abuse your body with chemicals for long enough one day it turns on you and makes your irrational long enough to self-destruct.

[Anonymous No.19880603]

>>19875325
Faulkner
>>19877492
>inhuman world of material and economics
it's always been so. Or you have this foul image in your mind that back then it was Lord of The Rings and chill ?

[Anonymous No.19881264]

"There is a false saying, 'Whoever cannot save himself - how can he save others? ' But if I have the key to your chains, why should your and my lock be the same."

Nietzsche