/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.4113663]

Which books had the most impact on your life, in terms of changing your view of the world or how you go about your daily life.

[Anonymous No.4113678]

TAI
PEI
TAO
LIN

[Anonymous No.4113724]

Straight man - Richard Russo : For everyone in academia.

>>4113678
Can someone explain this meme?

[Anonymous No.4113772]

>>4113724
The meme is that Tao Lin is the greatest contemporary author, but we only use his name rarely out of reverence.

[Anonymous No.4114160]

The Stranger.

[Anonymous No.4114190]

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

[Anonymous No.4114212]

Portrait of the Artist.

[Anonymous No.4114243]

The Brothers Karamazov
-Impacted me on the concept of human brotherhood. Perhaps not so much on the religious motifs, but it was so excellently done.
Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
-Essentially the book that allows me to deal withy the shit that occurs in my life and family. My go to book in my teenage years.

[Anonymous No.4114258]

Beyond Good & Evil. it's not so much that I instantly became an 'edgy' Nietzschean anti-moralist; rather, it opened my eyes to the idea of alternative modes of moral conception and discourse. Once the duality of good/evil gets split open, the space for thinking is infinite.

[Anonymous No.4116454]

Les Mis. I became a better man.

[Anonymous No.4116635]

It's difficult to pinpoint a particular book. I'm going to mention Siddartha though. It's not that I converted to Buddhism or anything drastic, and I think anyone who has that response would have only read it very superficially, just looking at the setting and environment of the story. I just felt different after I finished it, in a way I can't specify. Life just felt more vivid, as if a constant static noise had quietened to a low murmur, and revealed some faint music. It was really bizarre.

[Anonymous No.4117006]

The Myth of Sisphus

[Anonymous No.4117120]

Demian

[Anonymous No.4119217]

[Anonymous No.4119233]

>>4119217
idk if you're joking, but Dawkin's books on biology like the Selfish Gene and the Greatest Show on Earth are actually really good, and gave me textbook level understanding for those topics. It actually made me love science more than any Sagan book.

[Anonymous No.4119237]

>>4113663
this would be such a beautiful picture if the artist had actually drawn realistic human heads instead of these weird bug-eyed cartoon monstrosities. anime ruins everything

[Anonymous No.4119244]

>>4119237
glad I'm not the only one.

[Anonymous No.4119245]

>>4119217
For a second I read that as the shellfish gene and thought there was a picture of a crab and was really confused.

[Anonymous No.4119275]

As a kid--early teens: definitely Ender's Game.

Not because I felt particularly smart or isolated, but because I actually tried to be a leader and connect with people on a closer level.

[Anonymous No.4119461]

>>4119233

Not joking at all. I had a very limiting worldview before starting this book. I'm so thankful I read it.

[Anonymous No.4119470]

>>4119237
it's realistic. that's how people in japan actually look.

nice racism m8

[Anonymous No.4120760]

>>4119275
Just finished reading it today, I'd never heard of it before I saw the trailer for the upcoming movie and did a little digging, I liked it a lot.

[Anonymous No.4122920]

Bump.

[Anonymous No.4123164]

Snow Crash, not because it's really that good, but because I read it when I was still young and it made me look at American society in a way that detached me from it, and revealed a lot about how I lived.

Otherwise, probably Siddhartha.

[Tallis !!DxrlCMGAS2J No.4123283]

Novalis' Henri von Ofterdingen
Montherlant's Les Jeunes Filles

[Anonymous No.4123315]

Steinbeck's Tortilla Flat and King Arthur made me realise I want to write.

[Anonymous No.4123326]

Principia Discordia

[Anonymous No.4125975]

Bump.

[Anonymous No.4126023]

1984 then Blood Meridian.

[Anonymous No.4126028]

>>4123315

haha mah nigga I just finished tortilla flat
>dem feels for Torelli
>dem feels for big joe when he steals and they beat the shit out of him
>dem feels when danny

I'd say I realised I wanted to write when reading of 'bliss' by katherine mansfield, or that ginsberg poem about the lion

[Anonymous No.4126075]

>>4113663
Catcher in the Rye

[Anonymous No.4126090]

The Plague, The Myth of Sisyphus, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Steppenwolf, Notes from Underground

Now that I think about it, I read all of these around the same time ~5 years ago when I was having what I guess was a sort of quarter-life crisis. The first 3 are largely about finding a way to remain optimistic in shitty circumstances which I think rubbed off on me. Steppenwolf and Notes from Underground I suppose just helped me become more comfortable with and not feel guilty for being a reclusive introverted loser

[Anonymous No.4126947]

The Lorax

[Anonymous No.4126956]

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance when I was 14.

Plato's Republic when I was 17.

[Anonymous No.4126984]

>>4126028

I think it's the only novel that has made me laugh out loud, to be honest. I think I was around 13 at the time, and to this day I love everything Steinbeck has done to death.

[Anonymous No.4126988]

Protocols of the Elders of Zion

[Anonymous No.4127000]

Infinite Jest

[Anonymous No.4127036]

I Bought it in 2000 (age 14) after it was recommended to me by my cousin.

It was the first book I've read that wasn't pushed into my hands by school or my parents, and it taught me that reading can be exciting and not just a boring school chore.

Haters gonna hate but Harry Potter got me into reading.

[Anonymous No.4127066]

Shakespeare's Julius Caesar in 10th grade
1984 in 12th grade
Hawking's Brief History in 12th grade
Dawkins' Selfish Gene at age 19
Sagan's Cosmos at age 19
Russell's Problems of Philosophy at age 19

Those books in that order are pretty much what has determined who I am today in every way possible.

[Anonymous No.4127117]

>>4127066
>tips fedora

[Anonymous No.4127141]

>>4127066

1984

Hahaha

[Anonymous No.4127154]

>>4127117

>fedora

I will admit that for about a year I was a fedorafag. Then I started going to /pol/ and taking more philosophy courses at the uni and transitioned out of the fedora mindset.

>>4127141

I am not quite sure why 1984 gets such a bad rep on /lit/, it always puzzled me.

[Anonymous No.4127176]

>>4127036
Harry Potter is perfectly fine children's lit.

>>4113663
>Which books had the most impact on your life
Thinking purely of fiction:
As a child:
>Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
>The Neverending Story

Older:
>Voyage to Arcturus
>A Canticle for Leibowitz
>Notes from Underground

[Anonymous No.4127182]

>>4127154
>Then I started going to /pol/
holy bananas batman... why?!
leave before your IQ is irreversibly damaged!!

[Anonymous No.4127190]

>>4127182

I find that it is hard to understand people you disagree with until you can get inside their heads and hear their arguments to the fullest.

That being said, I have only been convinced of maybe 5% of what goes on /pol/. The rest of it is just overhyped "happenings", terrible source choices, and logical fallacies.

Of the 5% I did get out of it was the absolute absurdity of being arrogant as an atheist (or theist, for that matter). On top of that, I started to read stuff by Hume and Descartes which made me forget the whole idea of objective certainty to begin with.

[Anonymous No.4127196]

The Brothers Karamazov

[Anonymous No.4127204]

>>4127190
Yes /pol/ is a great teacher in how not to think. I came out of their as a better more balanced person.

[Anonymous No.4127209]

>>4127154

people here don't like 1984 because it's a it's widely known and esteemed. same reason /fa/ doesn't like certain brands, why /mu/ doesn't like certain artists that are clearly good, and why most 4channers dont like most things, to convince themselves they're different and special because nobody ever told them they were

captcha: anolyste prophet

[Anonymous No.4127216]

>>4123315
Tortilla Flat also got me into a better mindset towards writing.

Besides that, Infinite Jest - that book through me for a loop and fucked with me in some of the most entertaining ways possible. It also made me rethink everything I thought I wanted to write about and how I wanted to stylistically.

[Anonymous No.4127257]

None, I have a functioning mind of my own. They are fun and you can learn a lot though.

[Anonymous No.4127260]

Walden

[Anonymous No.4127270]

>>4113663

[Anonymous No.4127277]

>>4127257
>None, I have a functioning mind of my own.
Yes, I'm sure all of your ideas blossomed fully formed from the singular depths of your own brilliant mind. Nothing you have ever read, from birth to now, has had the slightest impact on you or your worldview.

[Anonymous No.4127286]

>>4127277
sarcasm is for weak minded people

[Anonymous No.4127292]

>>4127286
No, I'm sure none of your ideas blossomed fully formed from the shallow depths of your own stupid mind. You do not have your own mind, as nothing you have ever thought, from birth to now, has been entirely original or formed independent of things acting outside yourself.

[Anonymous No.4127295]

"All Quiet on the Western Front" made me despise nationalism.

[Anonymous No.4127331]

>>4127292

[Anonymous No.4127344]

>>4119237
>animu ruins everything
Anon pls. Some of it ruins some things some of the time.
But yeah, that picture in particular is absolutely disgusting.

[Anonymous No.4127379]

>>4127204

Pretty much. Some stuff is good, but most of the time it is me just keeping my logic and rhetorical reasoning skills from getting rusty.

>>4127209

Yeah, that would be a good explanation. Too "mainstream".

[Anonymous No.4127381]

>>4127295
Only despise Balkan-Slavic nationalism, dude. That's the only nationalism worth despising. It's the most retarded backwards nationalism with no forethought into anything but MUH PEOPLE.

[Anonymous No.4127397]

The Grapes of Wrath

It made me a communist

[Anonymous No.4127404]

The Possessed - Dostoyevsky

[Anonymous No.4127419]

>>4127381
So, what kind of nationalism would you conciser acceptable, what are its benefits, and how do you justify believing in a nationalistic ideal from a philosophical perspective?

[Anonymous No.4127438]

[Anonymous No.4127451]

Mason & Dixon for showing me the beauty of language.

[Anonymous No.4127459]

Ulysses

[Anonymous No.4127465]

>>4116635
that's beautiful anon.

[Anonymous No.4127486]

Catcher in the rye or atlas shrug.

Not even trollin', read them when I was 13-14 and didn't fully understand either til I re read when I was 16-17 and shit... Huge impact on me.

[Anonymous No.4127507]

>>4116635
I felt like I should have read it before I tried shrooms I learned absolutely nothing new, even though I get it.

[Anonymous No.4127733]

>>4127404
why? it was such a letdown compared to TBK (and even C&P)

[Anonymous No.4127801]

>>4119461
same here bro

[Anonymous No.4127802]

>>4127419
Nationalism that puts the nation-state as a whole in perspective (factoring in economics, cultural history, and geopolitics, not just 'genetic history'), as in the welfare of the public.

Nationalism that promotes heterogeneous and variable international trade and fights client-stating. Nationalism like Ho Chi Minh's or Simon Bolivar's or Castro's or that of the Founding Fathers of the United States.
(note I'm not saying that the adoption of a communist or socialist economic system is good nationalism, but that a forethought into the economic and geopolitical sovereignty of the nation is a marker of 'good nationalism.')

Also I'm not sure what you're doing on /lit/ (a board that discusses international literature) if you don't think that the cultural virility of a peoples and nation are of some level of importance. Nationalism helps advance the culture of any ethno-nation by making the culture more self-aware. This, as a result, improves the efficacy of any and all diffusion of cultures involving the nationally-aware state.

Maybe you should do some more reading on what 'nationalism' is, anon.
Here is a very useful source: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nationalism/

[Anonymous No.4127817]

>>4127733
Not that guy, but it had a great impact on me too; especially Stavrogin's character.
I also realized my behavior sometimes resembled to that of Stepan Trofimovich, and I I managed to change some shit in my life.

[Anonymous No.4127823]

>>4127733
I'm not the poster you replied to, but I think the possessed is much more pragmatist as a work of literature, in the sense that the characters and their interactions with one-another are much less allegorical than Dosto's other works, and a lot more.. 'natural' I wanna say.
It's much less 'telling' and a lot more 'showing' as far as philosophy goes, which is something that may cause it to be more evocative of epiphany for some people.

[Anonymous No.4127913]

>>4127802
Nationalism or religions or whatever instant-made identity politics for the people have always, without fail, led to some ethnocentric spin-offs because it promises a kind of pride, belonging, and sacred cause that would require zero thinking. People decry radical nationals and religious fundies as if they are unintended errors, when those are EXACTLY the aims of politicians in the first place - attracting the people that LOVE to have a straight, proper path of glory and virtue in life laid out, and, with a hypocrisy common to those unused to self-examination, to unleash their terrible tendencies in the name of the flag or the Lord, and be loved for it.

They are served up to you proper and demure, in the name of all that is good, because otherwise how would they convince those hypocritical people with authoritarian tendencies? And families would have trouble sending their children off to die in distant lands just for money. I WOULD REPEAT, as many times as I COULD, that there can be no army, but merely a brigand, without an IDENTITY and some form of legitimacy. The (inevitable) promotion of a nation's culture, including the innocuous and freedom-loving arts, would reinforce this sense of identity and be the benign intentions that pave the road to hell. The roads in Iraq are only marginally less devastated after being bombed by multicultural, freedom-loving, heterogeneity-supporting fighters.

Such fools, and such politics, and wars, will never disappear.

[Anonymous No.4127944]

>>4127913
You are taking my analysis of an abstract and applying it to your own argument.

It's not about the politics of nationalism, it's about the philosophies of nationhood. We were discussing 'Good Nationalism' vs 'Bad Nationalism' and my argument was that nationalism should not be tossed to the wind, and that it serves intellectual purpose.

>Such fools, and such politics, and wars, will never disappear.
This is a true statement, but it seems like you're too fucking dense to understand why, but never fear, I have a one word answer. Greed.

You might be saying "duh, I fucking knew that the few will always lead the many to the slaughterfields because of greed," but it's not the greed of the few, man. It's the greed of the all.

Scarcity.

[Anonymous No.4127957]

>>4127913
Anyway it seems like you're just talking for the sake of talking, but this is /lit/, and so am I.

'Brigand' in and of itself is an identity. Society is not a choice, man will inherently move into closed circles with those he 'identifies' with. So brigands will be brigands, and then brigands will be nations, and the sons of wolves will found the greatest empires in the world.

[Anonymous No.4128024]

>>4127944
>I have a one word answer. Greed.
And I have more: why do you reckon that people are not stealing from their neighbors? Because it's bad and we have laws, created by society, or as you call it, the greed of all. So why does the greed of all make neighbors cooperate, but nations fight? Why don't we, as a whole race, solve, as you say, scarcity by killing half our neighbors, and gain more immediate profits than making big wars? Over in a night, and would halve our consumption. In fact, what do "greed", and "all" even refer to, for most people? Does the greed for universal fraternity and altruism or some form of morality count? That word is so useless.

There shouldn't be one single cause for the lack of unity. But the biggest obstacle is the differences - our neighbors are not half as different as foreigners - and the resulting fear of assimilation by the law. It's not wanting to live under Sharia or having it abolished. It's the unwillingness to understand that "all" means humanity. It's ethnocentrism : us vs them.

I wouldn't want Sharia either.

[Anonymous No.4128044]

Dune
A Sand County Almanac
Industrial Society and its Future

[Anonymous No.4128210]

Notes from Underground and Tropic of Capricorn, both in a negative way.

[Anonymous No.4128253]

>>4114258
This. It really got me to stop thinking in absolutes and helped me begin to really live my life.