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/lit/ - Literature

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3023474 No.3023474 [Reply] [Original]

Why dont I like this? I've tried reading this book multiple times and I honestly dont see the appeal to it. None of the shit that the author says do I agree with, and his constant ramblings on a billion different subjects just seem boring. Usually I can get behind a book that deals with all of this stupid shit.

>> No.3023483

It's pretty fucking funny if you have the right sense of humor.

>> No.3023513

You don't need to agree with him, just understand what kind of a person he is. Anyway, it gets better once he stops ranting and starts the narrative.

>> No.3023525

>>3023483
No no!
This is an introduction to early existentialism.
What he is describing in the book is an individual who is lost in the vacuum between believing in a world of sense, and becoming the absurd being.
In this position in between, man is despaired, hopelessly clinging to whatever seems motivated.

Remember the sequence where he notes that he finds some odd sort of pleasure in the disgust from his colleagues?

Furthermore he even pinpoints the cognitional aspects of existentialism, as he notes that "How can I be free, when I am not free beyond the point at which two and two are still four? How can I be free, when I cannot decide that two and two are five?"

The second part of the book, the story is even more amazing. Notice how he keeps manically searching for something motivating, something to move him. How he searches the brawl at the bar, how he deliberately become enemy with all his old friends, how he pushes it to the very end with the girl.
Hold this together with the sequence in The Idiot, where Prince Myshkin is wandering about the garden in the nighttime, just wallowing in the feeling of breakdown. Finally a feeling!

No comrades, this draws lines directly forward to Søren Kierkegaard and Albert Camus.

>> No.3023532

>>3023525
And pretty fucking funny added on top of that.

>> No.3023537

>>3023532
From a misanthropic nihilist point of view, yes ;)

>> No.3023544

>existentialism

Faggery daggery doo

>> No.3023575
File: 347 KB, 1106x1400, 1349127740245.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3023575

It was a good book, but pic related.

>> No.3023583

>>3023474

How old are you OP? Would you consider yourself well read?

I wouldn't expect somebody who was over 20 and had a decent grounding in literature to get very into Dostoevsky. He's pretty much a writer for hypersensitive teenagers.

Catch him at the right time, though, and he will blow your mind.

>> No.3023585
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3023585

ugh that book was a chore to get through

>> No.3023587

>>3023583
7/10

>> No.3023596

>>3023587

I'm really not trolling. If Catcher In the Rye is entry tier disaffected youth reading, Dostoevsky is the next step.

>> No.3023600

>>3023596
Maybe if you only read books as reaffirmation of how edgy you are, yeah.

>> No.3023601

>>3023596
What would be be on your ultimate tier for disaffected youth?

>> No.3023634

>>3023474
Don't confuse the author and the protagonist, bro. Very important distinction to make, especially in this book.

>> No.3023733

>>3023537
> misanthropic nihilist

faggot faggot

>> No.3024136

>>3023525
This.

>> No.3024152

>>3023525
>Freedum fuck math xD edgy lololololololo

>> No.3024160

>>3024152
>>>/b/

>> No.3024178

Did you at least get to Apropos of the Wet Snow? Underground can be a bit difficult to get through but Apropos of the Wet Snow is fantastic.

>> No.3024296

>>3023474
Why do you have to agree with a character to find his psychology interesting? Shouldn't not agreeing with him help with that in some way or are you just one of those people who wants their books to cram morals they already agree with down their throats?

>> No.3025077

>>3023525
>Søren Kierkegaard
Ah, a fellow Danishman is among us!
We're reading Kierkegaard at the moment in philosophy, but our main subject is ethics and our notes and questions for Kierkegaard contains a lot of stuff regarding Dostoevsky.
We read about free will before this course, quite useful.
We work with C&P but i'm glad to see some insight on this book, also because i prefer it over C&P.
>inb4 typos, right arm disabled atm

>> No.3025105

>None of the shit that the author says do I agree with
not this shit again