Why read literature?

[Anonymous No.21889019]

I seriously need to get into books people actually know and talk about. Wtf is the point of reading high brow "literature"? Don't tell me self-improvement, if this is because if this is just the hard mode version of schlocky self-help shit I will lose it

[Anonymous No.21889031]

>>21889019
> reading high brow literature to be “based”
> not reading for fun

[Anonymous No.21889032]

>>21889019
if this is a girl you're talking to, say you like: Sherlock Holmes or Dracula or Edgar Allan Poe. Save the Poe and Kafka namedrop for the arthoes

[Anonymous No.21889042]

>>21889019
if this is a girl you're talking to, say you like: Sherlock Holmes or Dracula or Edgar Allan Poe. Save the Borges and Kafka namedrop for the arthoes

[Anonymous No.21889044]

why organise your life around the interests and desires of the lowest denominator of human being

[Anonymous No.21889055]

Read the books you want to read and stop being wet about it. If you like reading what you consider 'high-brow' then do so. If not, stop reading them, and do something else. Why someone would forsake themselves to trudging through a book they dislike to have the same opinion as someone else is beyond me. Even in terms of conversation, it's so much better if you *haven't* read what they have; you got to explain elaborates, hear different perspectives and new thoughts, be directed to new books/ideas that might seem cooll and vice versa. Contrast is needed for good relationships to function. If, e.g. a teacher and student knew the same things, or is the artist could express just what everyone else could, they would be useless.

[Anonymous No.21889059]

>>21889019

[Anonymous No.21889070]

>>21889019
>;
seriously?

[Anonymous No.21889085]

This is the curse of trying to date women these days. They're all dialed up to 1000% quirkiness and happiness saturation levels, they're all talking about "adventures" and how they "love ____," then you try to engage with them on anything you realize they are basically an illiterate retard who likes to eat food and watch whatever is on streaming services.

[Anonymous No.21889087]

>>21889059

[Anonymous No.21889091]

>>21889019
>reading for approval
have you tried not being female

[Anonymous No.21889097]

>>21889091
Nigger you are on literature forum

[Anonymous No.21889100]

>>21889085
Most men don’t know any of those authors either but definitely women read Kafka and Borges more than men do

[Anonymous No.21889109]

>>21889100
Any man who claims to have any interest has a higher likelihood to have some level of expertise in it or at least a healthy appreciation of the established hierarchy of talent pertaining to the interest. I can have a conversation with the dumbest male zoomer who wants to be a /lit/fag and he'll at least know which authors are good and there's a 99% chance he'll defer to me and show a genuine willingness to learn instead of posturing if I know more than him. With women, they'll say they're massive fans of something and know nothing about it, or they'll study something for years and claim to be it, and know nothing about it.

Women also drive like shit, and are generally far less competent as doctors and dentists.

[Anonymous No.21889119]

>>21889100
Women read this. This is why women read more, it's 50 page eroticism

[Anonymous No.21889131]

>>21889019
Gatta do it for you. You read great stuff knowing youll die and it will be lost forever simply because it is great. The boring universe interpereting itself idea should be enough to fall in love with the great writers of the world. For me, Nietzsche was almost right. If it weren't for literature, life would be a mistake.

[Anonymous No.21889159]

>>21889070
>doesn't use semicolons when picking up women
lmao @ your life

[Anonymous No.21889198]

>>21889097
and? i read what i want without need for approval from others

[Anonymous No.21889207]

>>21889198
Why is you wanting to talk to male autists about books any less needy than wanting to talk to women about books? If anything this is worse because you are coming here out of your own free will and not a biological need to put your seed inside of a vagina

[Anonymous No.21889215]

>>21889019
>>21889042

[Anonymous No.21889216]

>>21889215
now put the whole thing in the mind of a beta male thinking of what to tweet to show he's a feminist ally, while a girl who has no idea who he is fucks someone else

[Anonymous No.21889220]

>>21889019
>McCarthy … Borges … PKD

[Anonymous No.21889357]

>>21889215
I didn't do it to show off, those are actually my favorite authors. They aren't even obscure, McCarthy in the top 3 American authors of all time and Kafka is one of the most famous authors of the entire 20th c. There are about 25 different hit Hollywood movies based on PKD stories.

[Anonymous No.21889384]

>>21889357
Girls will be more impressed if they recognize the book/author (a la >>21889042 Poe, Holmes, Dracula, and Frankenstein) otherwise they might think you’re being pretentious and/or lying to impress them.

[Anonymous No.21889403]

>>21889119
I could read the text in the thumbnail and my immediate first reaction was that bigfoot was going to be an imp.

[Anonymous No.21889445]

>>21889019
>anon has an epiphany and realises ambitious literature is a niche interest
The consequence is that it is very unlikely to work as a mating tool, win you friends or even start a conversation: no one reads books anymore. Don't seek out people who do, they are rare in the everyday life. Encounters with fellow readers should only ever happen accidentally or on some literature events.
>Why read if it won't get me laid?
Reading doesn't kill your soul. Is getting laid worth becoming a netflix or vidya zombie?

[Anonymous No.21889511]

>>21889207
At least a conversation with an autist can be interesting.

[Anonymous No.21889513]

>>21889019
It's so you learn things about what the most interesting writers/people thought about things and how they were and you're introduced to new ways of thinking and perceiving

[Anonymous No.21889518]

>>21889019
Wait, are Kafka and Borges considered obscure or something? I read them back in highschool come on.

[Anonymous No.21889563]

>>21889019
I read high-brow literature because I like having good experiences. I also like discerning quality from trash, and while I have really detested certain celebrated garbage, there's a small part of me that gets gratified when I can really look down on something people respect out of ignorance (or genuinely bad taste)
Mostly though, it's intrinsically rewarding. I like smugly throwing around authors' names and famous titles, sure. I like understanding references that come up in more current or relevant stuff. I like getting a sense of what peoples lives looked and felt like in different places and times. I like tasty imagery and turns of phrase. I like being surprised when my feelings are twisted in some unexpected way (which is much rarer with things from my own time and culture, I find, because the standard template is so well-trodden, the values and archetypes so already-pervasive).
It is a shame that the high barrier of entry makes it difficult to have conversations with real people about lit, it really is. Maybe you could find some interest groups around you or even start a book club or some shit.
But really, if you don't enjoy reading lit, you should stop. It's supposed to be rewarding on its own.

[Anonymous No.21889647]

>>21889019
I hate fence sitters who can't just say what their favorite thing is, even if it's just their favorite for that moment.

[Anonymous No.21889653]

>>21889019
>not realizing she for sure knows virtually all of them and just gaslights you because you text and very likely also look like a soiboy

[Anonymous No.21889722]

>pseud has /lit/ chart taste and can't hide his powerlevel
shawker. you read for the communion of two minds and the fun and beauty that comes from the text simple as

[Anonymous No.21889736]

>>21889722
>man shares his interest in relatively broad way and organically
>SOMEHOW HE WAS WRONG TO DO THIS MANSPLAINING MANSPREADING YOU'LL NEVER GET PUSSY THAT WAY

You are too afraid of women. It's okay to just be like lol look at this dumb broad

[Anonymous No.21889761]

>>21889736
you can tell pretty easy which thotties on tinder are ya readers if you're not completely retarded. op saw the book thing as a way to swing dick in a situation where it can only be detrimental and then comes here whining "bros where are the kafkaesque girls"

[Anonymous No.21889782]

>>21889761
I really think you've overanalyzing. Everything OP mentioned is extremely common these days. If anything, there are a lot of women who would screenshot his message and post it to their twitter whining about men having "big egos" about reading entry level names. You can't win with these idiots, so might as well just be genuine and nice, which I think OP was.

Women are not Scylla and Charybdis, they're mostly just dumb and thoughtless. Beyond basic bare minimum stuff like generally checking yourself for whether you were being a tryhard out of insecurity or something, it's not worth analyzing what you did wrong. I've gone full blown autism on girls because I misinterpreted something many times and they just said "lol those are way over my head so you're going to have to explain" or something. If two people are interested in eachother and acting basically normally then the norm is permissiveness and forgiving, not "gotcha" minefields.

[Anonymous No.21889817]

>>21889782
I think you're over analyzing with some projection thrown in. I don't know what points op was making other than "the books I read don't make girls think I'm smart and want to fuck me." it's not a turn on when you just rattle a list off for something you're supposedly interested in

[Anonymous No.21889834]

>>21889817
Why wouldn't it be? The girl I'm currently dating sent me a list of movies I'd never seen or heard of when I asked what kind of films she was into because she listed it in her profile. They were all super obscure French cinema stuff way over my head. It made me interested in her, I told her I'm a pleb compared to her, she thought that was funny, I ended up learning a lot from her about film even from the first couple dates.

Why should there be special rules for what does and doesn't turn women on? If a guy walked up to me and said he likes role playing games and I said which ones, thinking I knew some stuff about D&D and so on, and he listed a bunch of obscure shit I'd never heard of like Dark Sun and Runequest, I'd be interested, not "turned off." Why would it be any different the other way around, or if one of us was a woman?

[Anonymous No.21889835]

>>21889817
I was complaining about the fact nobody reads this shit so the only people I can share my interests with are you fucking neckbeards. I can pick up girls on tinder without them knowing the authors I like because I've touched grass before

[Anonymous No.21889860]

>>21889834
because you're a dude and a girl being interested in a niche thing that you don't know about is novel. the point of a dating app is to flirt and spark some interest. cross indexing lists for compatibility is not conducive for that because all you can do is go "yeah I like/love that" or "I don't like that/don't know what that is"

[Anonymous No.21889873]

>>21889860
It is if the list has a high likelihood of some of its items being recognized, and Kafka, Borges, and McCarthy at least are all incredibly common authors. McCarthy is one of the most significant and popular living authors. I would even go as far as to say that a list entirely composed of PKD types that girls are less likely to know would have been fine, because there's still a reasonable likelihood. The implicit message is "here are my favs, recognize any of them by any chance? if not, that's cool, what are yours?"

I could only see your point if OP had gone out of his way to be obscure as fuck so that there's no reasonable chance the other party would know them.

I've never had any problems with this method. I've never had a woman make a snarky comment or anything. I think it's a dangerous way of thinking, to assume that there's a special secret way to smalltalk with women about a common interest that is different from how you'd do it with men. Men are already retarded simps who think talking to a girl is a job interview, that kind of thinking adds fuel to that fire.

[Anonymous No.21889903]

>>21889873
this isn't like pua shit or anything, but you don't talk to a girl that you're flirting with like one of the guys lmao. idk this whole conversation is stupid. fellas don't be a boring pseud if you're going to use the media you consume as a way to pick up chicks

[Anonymous No.21889920]

>>21889903
>try being a real slick johnny and telling women what I think they want to hear
>nothing but milquetoast conversations
>be myself (autistic retard but nice)
>get gfs
>be much more psychologically healthy because I'm no longer playing some cringe character and trying to predict women's mercurial reactions, I'm just being myself
I can only report my own anecdotal experience

[Anonymous No.21889921]

>>21889019
>Why read literature?
Any good piece of art helps u to think that is to say analysing and trying to decipher hidden meanings and patterns is an exercise for improving problem solving skill(or atleast males u more aware of already existing patterns). It's kind of like rob ager's view and approach to films and film analysis.

[Anonymous No.21889954]

>>21889357
You're autistic, it's ok, we're here for you.

[Anonymous No.21890083]

>>21889019
Just tell her McCarthy wrote No country for old men. Surely she knows what that is.

[Anonymous No.21890141]

>>21890083
>women watching westerns

[Anonymous No.21890825]

>>21890141
it won several oscars though didn't it? women usually care about that

[Anonymous No.21890827]

>>21889019
>Why read literature?
To pass the time

[Anonymous No.21890854]

>>21889019
Women are retarded and only recognise and participate in classic lit when it's trendy or mass advertised to them. If you enjoy these highbrow works don't lower yourself. What mean by they read is largely genre fiction, likely either Fantasy or Sci-Fi written at YA level. They also like the most shameless masturbatory "Romance" with Mary Sues have inane political messages such as 'empowermentc or 'bigotry bad' that they think is deep.

[Anonymous No.21890868]

>>21889445
Blackpilled. People used to read, not reading has lowered the average quality of people, we should still seek out friendshios over literature, it'll just be harder.

[Anonymous No.21890878]

>>21889019
It’s like drugs. The more you consume the more your tastes change and things you enjoyed before don't quite hit the right notes that they used to. Ideas that were fun and enjoyable become stale and common in an industry of creators that read and copy eachothers' work.

Eventually what you are left with to sustain your interest are the complicated techniques morons and midwits can't seem to copy or reproduce. Your ravenous consumption of media, which has deadened the novelty and pleasure you feel reading commonly written works and what's left for you to appreciate is the scraps and scrapes of genius you cab't find in large enough volumes that you can become numb and unimpressed by it.

If you don't want to read classics then don't. Read what you enjoy. And those books you enjoy will die into classics. Consume everything which will even mildly entertain and excite you. And soon all that will be left are those classics.

[Anonymous No.21890882]

>>21890854
Holding out for a gorl with taste in sonething isn't impossible but they'll likely be a normie girl at everything else. So even if they have great taste in film or lit they'll still watch retarded reality tv and read BookTok or the Oprah book club equivalent.

[Anonymous No.21890884]

>>21889019
>Why read literature?
Carroll N., Gibson J. - The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Literature (2015)

" ‘Literary cognitivism’ (Young 2001) is the claim that fictions can yield non-trivial knowledge or understanding of extra-fictional reality – ‘non-trivial’ because that certain things are true in a story is itself an extra-fictional fact!
Fictions might be thought to be cognitively valuable in a number of different ways (see, e.g. Novitz 1987). One seemingly uncontroversial, if relatively uninteresting, sense in which fictions can inform us about the actual world is by providing knowledge of particular facts. Authors, after all, often embed their fictions in a ‘real setting’ – for example, London during the Blitz – and readers, it might be thought, can acquire true beliefs about this setting through the author’s descriptions. More interesting, but more controversial, is the claim that literary fictions can provide readers with knowledge of general principles that govern the unfolding of events in the real world. Such principles, elusive in ordinary experience, are supposedly made salient by the events comprised by the fictional narrative (see e.g. Young 2001, Carroll 2002, Elgin 2007) . It is arguably for this reason that Aristotle (1941) characterizes poetry as ‘more philosophical’ than history. Third, literary fictions might be a source of categorial understanding, furnishing the reader with new categories or kinds whose application to the real world illuminates matters of fact (Goodman 1976). Finally, some have argued that literature is an important source of what might be termed affective knowledge – knowledge of ‘what it would be like’ to be in circumstances that readers rarely if ever encounter in ordinary life – and that this heightens the capacity for moral agency by providing insights into how others might be affected by our actions (e.g. Putnam 1978)."

"Catherine Elgin (2007) compares literary fictions to thought experiments in science. Critics of literary cognitivism, she argues, assume that we make cognitive progress by amassing information about the world, but the main obstacle to such progress is not a lack of information, but a lack of ‘right’ ways of organizing, classifying, and properly orienting ourselves towards the information we already possess. What is required is creative ‘reconfiguration’, new and valuable ways of configuring our experience and thereby the world. Both real experiments and thought experiments in science are ways of doing this: we set up a constrained situation and determine the consequences of particular ways of organizing things in those circumstances."

[Anonymous No.21890886]

>>21890878
No it is not like that at all. You're just brain fried. If you can't appreciate the different levels once you've tasted greatness it'd be like constantly looking for Moby Dicks and no longer being able to read Mark Twain.

[Anonymous No.21891008]

>>21889019
For aesthetic and moral pleasure. I read literature not to engage with others, but to engage with the work itself. Engaging with others is extremely rewarding, but solitary reading is also an experience worth pursuing.

[Anonymous No.21891098]

>>21889357
You have to understand most "men" today live and exist entirely by the female gaze. Anything else is "autistic."

[Anonymous No.21891112]

>>21890882
>but they'll likely be a normie girl at everything else
or be really ugly and fat with severe mental issues, since the lack of constant positive reinforcement and infinite attention by guys is one of the only ways girls develop hobbies, interests, and decent tastes

[Anonymous No.21891175]

>>21889044
You'd be surprised how many do it for the sole purpose of entertaining them

[Anonymous No.21891178]

>>21889085
JUST

[Anonymous No.21891900]

>>21891098
are there any books on this

[Anonymous No.21891967]

>>21889085
Ikwym. Posers everywhere, amirite?

[Anonymous No.21891970]

>>21889019
how old are you OP?
if you ask a woman what her favorite books might be and she says she doesn't have any, she doesn't read. when she says she likes a lot of books but doesn't have a favorite, she doesn't read but doesn't want to look stupid.
if you really want to know what most people read, look at the NYT bestseller list.
why the fuck would you ask anyone here unless you want to read their bible or plato?
lastly, anyone who has been to university has heard of kafka, even if they never read one of his whiny incel books

[Anonymous No.21891978]

>>21889019
do those writers have a netflix show or tiktok meme about them? then she wont know about it

[Anonymous No.21892366]

>>21891900

[Anonymous No.21892568]

>>21891112
In that case they likely wouldn't have taste at all.

[Anonymous No.21892571]

>>21889131
>The boring universe interpereting itself idea
The truth is boring because it's no longer mysterious to you, but yeah things like literature and movies definitely make it worth it

[Anonymous No.21892633]

>>21892366
unfathomably based book

[Anonymous No.21892909]

>>21889834
what movies

[Anonymous No.21892952]

>>21889019
you're supposed to read because you enjoy it or find it interesting or whatever, not so you can sniff your own farts and feel smart

[Anonymous No.21894027]

>>21889085
>they're all talking about "adventures"
I don't have any problems with women like the rest of you guys, but GOD do I see this a lot on dating profiles these days.
What the fuck does it even mean? What kind of "adventure" are they planning on? Traveling to another country or something? Also: why are so many women these days obsessed with traveling to other countries?

[Anonymous No.21894040]

>>21889019
You read literature because you're never going to have a one on one conversation with a genius, and if you do, geniuses are rarely as articulate in person as they are on paper.

[Anonymous No.21894049]

>>21889357
She probably reads more modern works. To be honest, anyone who isn't a lit major and doesn't come on this board isn't going to read 100+ year old literature, they're going to read more fun, modern stuff. Have you read anything on the top ten released this year? Also PKD is peak male taste. His writing is okayish but I think he's one of those authors that got where they are by selling themselves as being "highbrow" and being prolific, I've tried him but disliked more than I liked.

[Anonymous No.21894089]

>>21889042
Poe is unironically my favorite author. And sherlock Holmes is my favorite fan fiction of poems supersleuth dupin.

[Anonymous No.21894143]

>>21889019
what is even more annoying is when they know the names because what follows is a stream of lies. the girls who know all the memes and the names rarely ever actually engage with the lit. I've only had one experience with a girl who I could tell was reading the names we were discussing and she was from an aristocratic Russian family. EVERY other time its some art hoe who after a couple of dates you can tell is exaggerating how much she's read of the classics and how little she cares for continuing to read them. It's all a LARP.

[Anonymous No.21894174]

>>21889782
Based and non-delusional pilled

[Anonymous No.21894619]

>>21894143
This is how I feel whenever one of the Schopenhauer or Nietzsche gossip threads pop up. People don't read, they just memorise trivia about personalities and use that to "refute" them.