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/lit/ - Literature

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4078993 No.4078993 [Reply] [Original]

Be honest with me, /lit/,

Have you ever, on /lit/, pretended to have read a book (implicitly or explicitly) so you could troll/sound smart/whatever?

>> No.4079007

Literally no one has ever done this

>> No.4079004

Pretending to read a book on /lit/ to sound smart

Dear

Fucking

God

>> No.4079008

No, because I'm not a faggot

>> No.4079038

>>4078993
>not using two bookmarks while reading IJ

>> No.4079040

No. I've both suggested and dismissed authors I haven't read much of, though.

>> No.4079051

only on /lit/

>> No.4079052

>>4079038
I don't understand why novels tend to put footnotes in the back rather at the bottom of the page. It's much more convenient that way, even in studies where the majority are simple citations.

>> No.4079061

>>4079052
I prefer them on the bottom of the page when they're short, but with something like IJ where the footnotes tend to go on and on I imagine it would get messy fairly quickly.

>> No.4079066

>>4079052
>>4079061
All of DFW's other books use footnotes, I don't know why IJ uses endnotes instead.

>> No.4079070

>>4079052
DFW used endnotes instead of footnotes basically to interrupt the reading process.

>> No.4079075

>>4079070
Why do you think he wanted that?

>> No.4079081

>>4079075
He said it many times....

>> No.4079083

>>4079075
I guess it could be good for all sorts of reasons. SLow down the reading, for one thing.

>> No.4079085

Nah. Not on /lit/. I did a few years back for a few books, but that was mostly because I had bought them and was ashamed to say that I had not read them.

I stopped doing that once I grew up though.

>> No.4079090

>>4079075
I guess to exacerbate the feeling of nonlinearity and dislocation, and create a kind of encyclopaedic effect kinda like in Moby-Dick. He seems to enjoy appropriating certain academic conventions and using them in the service of whimsy or satire. I guess it's a product of spending his life with his head buried in books.

>> No.4079094

>>4079075
aesthetics

>> No.4079100

yes, i do it all the fucking time and there is no way you can distinguish my posts from someone who has actually read them.

>> No.4079101

I've never lied about reading a book on /lit/, but I am guilty of it in real life. If someones asked me if I've read a book and I'm planning on reading it soon I jump to "yeah." But lately I've been stopping myself.

>> No.4079105

>>4079100
u go hard

i think someone could though by ur granma

>> No.4079131

>>4079100
>there is no way you can distinguish my posts from someone who has actually read them.

keep believing that m8

>> No.4079147

I'm pretty sure that's the case with everyone who read Infinite Jest.

If you ask them they wouldn't be able to tell you who the main character is, much less what the story is about.

>> No.4079155

>>4079147
>who the main character is
dfw self-insert

>much less what the story is about.
tennis

>> No.4079175

>>4079155
*dfw self-inserts (you forgot don gately, more an idealized vision of what all dfws of the world should strive to be rather than what they really are)

*tennis as an allegory for the cultural aspects of capitalism

>> No.4079190

>>4079175
i mainly thought dfw had distributed aspects of his personality evenly between himself and hal (and maybe a bit of uncle charles.) don gately struck me as a rather trite 'noble savage' archetype, i'm afraid. overall i enjoyed the book very much but gately and van dyne were weak characters imo. i find it a bit lazy that he returned to that slightly adolescent "prettiest girl in the world" character/theme in the pale king too.

>> No.4079222

>>4078993

Too many on /lit/ are doing that. No, they don't troll/sound smart/whatever.

>> No.4079341

>>4079222
If they're not trolling or trying to sound smart, why are they doing it?

>> No.4079350

>>4079341
Boredom.

>> No.4079506

>>4079190
Do you mean Meredith Rand? If so, I'd disagree; I thought while the core concept was the same but the execution was completely different. I would agree that Gately and van Dyne were probably the book's weakest characters, though.

>> No.4079516

I pretty much do that daily. Mostly during actual conversation though, because it's much easier, and it actually accomplishes something.

>> No.4079545

no im pretty honest about the fact that I don't read very much and my writing is shit

>> No.4079584

Yes. I was at a "party" one night and I was sitting on a couch with some other people when some chick started going off on some omg I read I'm such a super smart nerd XD shit. I don't like parties very much and I was in a bad mood so I asked her what her favorite book was and she said The Hunger Games. So then I said some shit like yeah I just read that and she asked me what I thought of it and I said it was really fucking stupid, one of the worst books I've ever read. Then some people who overheard me started mean-mugging me and the girl looked pissed off so I got up to get another beer and I went outside to drink on the grass alone.

I've never read The Hunger Games.