/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.2722017]

>You didn't spend your childhood reading and writing.

[Anonymous No.2722023]

Yes I did.

[Anonymous No.2722041]

Look, if you're trying to compete with Alexander Pope or Robert Browning - both of whom were tremendously precocious, reading more than I ever will before they hit twenty - then you're screwed. However, if you're being realistic then you only have to compete with contemporary standards: meaning you're practically an outlier if you read a novel a month. Nobody should be concerned about their literary inadequacies these days, provided they continue reading after high school.

[Anonymous No.2722045]

>>2722041
there are soem great writers who didn't start reading very much until they were in their twenties. i think there were a few guys. i don't remember who, but there was at least one

[Anonymous No.2722044]

I did but not enough as I would have liked to. I think I would have thought that regardless, though.

[Anonymous No.2722048]

>>2722045
>some great writers
>i think there were a few guys
>there was at least one

Inb4 you retract it completely

[Anonymous No.2722051]

I remember there was this fat dorky girl in middle school who did nothing but read during lunch and carried all of her books in a rolling luggage bag. A lot of us probably sneered at her, but she's probably going to go much further with her passion for reading than the rest of this generation will doing other things.

[Anonymous No.2722056]

>>2722051
Was she Stephanie Meyer?

[Anonymous No.2722057]

>>2722051
not really. you get up on charisma, confidence and dedication. not just enthusiasm.

[Anonymous No.2722060]

Reading yes but writing no, although in a way this has probably benefited me as I never had a chance to develop bad writing habits

[Anonymous No.2722062]

>>2722056
>implying Stephanie Meyer has ever read a book

[Anonymous No.2722064]

I did, now I'm recluse that only lives through fiction. What's good about it?

[Anonymous No.2722080]

Phillip K. Dick did.

and i like Phillip K. Dick, but the man is not that impressive.

[Anonymous No.2722089]

>>2722062
i think she's read wuthering heights, at least

[Anonymous No.2722090]

>>2722064
>you will never be a well adjusted sociable yet well read mary sue

[Anonymous No.2722094]

>>2722089

I bet she watched a TV adaptation.

[Anonymous No.2722097]

>>2722090
I actually don't mind being the way I am. Being a chick would be worse.

[Anonymous No.2722098]

>>2722090

>well adjusted sociable
>well read

No, I won't be, nor will anyone - ever.

[Anonymous No.2722103]

>>2722017
>Implying I had friends and anything better to do.
You put so much faith in me, OP.

[Anonymous No.2722127]

>>2722098
Yeah that's what I said. did you not read the 'you will never' part? it wasn't just aimed at you.

[Anonymous No.2722144]

Fucking television.

If i had a kid i would definitely encourage him to do things that didn't involve electricity and screens.

[Anonymous No.2722157]

>>2722144
That is a fucking terrible idea lol

[Anonymous No.2722155]

>>2722144
>LOL GUYS MY ARTFORM IS SO MUCH BETTER THAN ALL THE OTHERS GOD WHY DO THEY EVEN EXIST AMIRITE

[Anonymous No.2722162]

>>2722155

The only thing to do besides watching tv is art?

[Anonymous No.2722173]

>>2722162
>i can't into words please buy me a dictionary

please read my post again until you don't misunderstand what i'm saying

[Anonymous No.2722174]

>>2722045
>>2722048
I think Joseph Conrad would fit this description.

[Anonymous No.2722183]

I wasted my childhood playing videogames, watching anime, reading manga and once I hit 15 fantasy and some kids books and quality films.

I wish I had been banned from videogames while growing up. Once I hit 17 I realised they were such a huge waste of time they are. I'm down to two manga series that never seem to bloody end and one with one tankobon to be translated.

Only got into music properly at the middle of being 17.

At least I'm not past the age of 20 and reading a fair bit more than my peers in terrms of novels, then again I seem to be surrounded by working classes while at university and people who don't ever bring up books.

[Anonymous No.2722188]

>>2722173
Yeah, you're so good at reading comprehension, which is why you read the word "encourage" as "force" in >>2722144

[Anonymous No.2722198]

>>2722188
Did I say force? Or are you just extrapolating a misunderstanding on my part based on your clearly retarded reading on my post, you fat fuck?

[Anonymous No.2722211]

>>2722198
Your post
>>2722155
Implies that this post
>>2722144
Is forceful and unreasonable. Why? A child should be exposed to more than just television and the internet. And not even forcefully, simply with light encouragement.

>you fat fuck

Mature, bro.

[Anonymous No.2722209]

>you didn't spend this morning reading and writing
>you wasted it on the internet

[Anonymous No.2722218]

What do you guys do for jobs??

>implying you arent all in highschool

[Anonymous No.2722220]

>>2722211
No, it's implying it's elitist and narrowsighted to imply that literature is THE ONE TRUE ARTFORM. I never even acknowledge whatever you said about a kid.

[Anonymous No.2722234]

I've been reading like a motherfucker since I was very young. Of course then, as is the case with most small boys, I was all about dinosaurs and science and the like, and so mostly concerned myself with nonfiction. I even had a sort of "lab" in my basement back then, where I remember building a telegraph and shit.

My love of fiction didn't come till much later, I can't even quite remember exactly when and with what book, though my guess is with The Great Gatsby, of which a tattered copy I found in my gym locker in like 8th grade, read, and the raged 'cos the last five pages were missing. I had to ask my English teacher for a copy from the storeroom, since most schools in the U.S. have TGG as compulsory reading in 9th grade.

I had my first big break in writing in 5th or 6th grade, I believe. For a personal narrative assignment, most wrote about a vacation to an exotic place or a competitive sporting event or something; I stretched a particularly surreal trip to an Eckerd to buy a gallon of milk into a two page epic. It was a hit.


I played video games and shit once in a while, but I was never terribly good at them. Even now, I fucking hate playing CoD with friend. (I also hate when people actually refer to it as "cod").

[Anonymous No.2722240]

>>2722218
My post didn't mention literature. Simply that i spent too much time watching television. Now, in context with OP, yes, i think books should be read. But it seems unreasonable to imply that that's all there is to do when you're not watching t.v, and at no point did i shit on any other mediums.

We're actually not that opposed. You think people should stop putting their medium over all others. I think people should experience all mediums.

Television's good. The amount of it i watched is bad.

[Anonymous No.2722241]

I did read, but I had a hard time finding enthusiasm for the material every so often. My dad had very specific interests pertaining to mythology and fantasy so I was kind of encouraged down that road. I did enjoy it but I wish I'd been a bit more independent in exploring things for myself or just exposed to and encouraged to read a more diverse range. I would have liked to approach the American classics earlier.
My father dismissed existentialism when I mentioned it. I think he said that it was only over thinking all the things people just do in everyday life (paraphrasing horribly here because this was a minor event years ago). Of course he wouldn't have thought any different since he was very secure in his catholicism and he had already had his encounter with The Castle. I have no problem with his opinion (it probably has some weight because he's not stupid) but it put me off an entire genre of philosophy and literature right when I showed an interest and I never approach Kafka, Kierkegaard, Sartre, Camus, or Dostoevsky until much later.
I wish I'd been more open minded and looked at my mum's shelf more often but how is a 10-15 year old supposed to know they could enjoy the same topics as a 40 year old woman? It's a shame because Miller and de Beauvoir and fucking good.
As a result, I stuck mainly to kids and young adult stuff before my casual reading was overtaken by thousands of pdfs and textbooks for a degree course I was only halfheartedly resigned to.
It picked again after graduation and now I'm back at uni where I've spent more time reading at leisure in coffee shops off campus, and browsing charity bookshops than studying for my masters. Fuck.

[Anonymous No.2722246]

>>2722240
meant for
>>2722220

[Anonymous No.2722255]

I still feel proud that I won a poetry award in my class when I was 10

[Anonymous No.2722292]

>>2722209
There are certain instances of satisfaction, curiosity and even enlightenment yet he feels so desperately that he is wasting the precious seconds of his youth with such power that some effort is required to prevent concrete acquiescence of this disconcerting thought.

Yet when it is briefly illumined or developed enough to be considered half-seriously it is accompanied by the somewhat comforting notion that each and every faceless poster must be similarly burdened with this vague and guilty uneasiness.

How marvelous all these shadows straining as a singular organism and focusing earnestly to express conscious and semi-conscious abstractions in cogent offerings that cannot possibly be rewarded. No reward is forthcoming and it is inspirational to witness the selfless suppression of the innate tendency to trend towards some poorly defined ideal of "productivity."