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/lit/ - Literature

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4748994 No.4748994[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

What are some techniques for detaching myself from the material I read?

e.g I read the chapters in Don Quixote about the two friends and one of them wants to test his wifes fidelity (and in doing do so sets about his own downfall unknowingly) and I couldn't help feeling white hot anger at the NTR (cuckolding/cheating) themes. I felt much the same way with that girl in War and Peace who wanted to forsake her engagement with that guy who lies on the battlefield and admires the blueness of the sky for that scandalous brother of the wife of the fat bumbler who becomes a free mason.

I don't want to feel these feels. They linger about and leave a bad taste in my mind and I just have to put the book down and walk away.

I want to be more objective in my reading and being so emotionally evoked I don't think it good for any reader.

Any tips? Ways to distance myself?

>> No.4749004

Really? Damn, I wish I could care or relate that much. Literature leaves me cold. Pleasantly cold though.

>> No.4749030

>>4749004

Was it always that way? What sort of books/genres do you read?

>> No.4749096

This isn't bad OP.

Let me explain why thing or two first.

Literature is supposed to inflame your emotions. Back in the day literature was written with the idea of the exemplar in mind; the exemplar is a character(s) that embodies virtue, and by seeing this embodiment of virtue the audience is moved to imitate the character. It's a form of "mental conditioning", in our modern language. Back then they might have just called it "setting a good example". That was back when writers and artists in general saw that their art had an impact on people and on society and so they had a duty to produce the best exemplars for the sake of the people and the morals of society.

Conversely, much of today's art is "art for art's sake", I.e. just create what YOU think is beautiful and never mind what impact it has on other people or society. This is the romantic school of art, the adolescent school, the irresponsible school.

Wise people know that art has an impact on society and people, and the truth is that there has been a concerted effort by artists over the last few centuries to degrade people's morals. That's why you have music videos that are pornographic - they set exemplars for young people to imitate.

Now, the literary man if today who is "cultured" because he reads all of the "great" works of literature from every epoch will tell you that you have to detach yourself emotionally so that you can understand the art on an intellectual level and appreciate there. This is wrong. Art will always have an enotional/psychological effect no matter how subtle.

All that being said: DO NOT fall for the trick of feeling that you have to read the literary "Canon". It was set up as part of liberal education, I.e. "a little bit of everything education", I.e. pretentious dilettante education. READ ONLY THE ABSOLUTE BEST OF LITERATURE AND AVOID THE REST LIKE THE PLAGUE. No OP, you should NOT have to sit through disgusting scenes in so-called art; art is about beauty and if it does not ennoble you then it is not but rather vapid entertainment. Most of the Canon is just vapid entertainment. Shakespeare, for example, is worthless; his plays are full of the most inane and crude jokes, for example, and that's the least of his crimes.

Read Homer, Virgil, Dante. Either of those three. Learn a language. You'd be far, far, far better of just reading one of these poems when you have time for reading, and really absorbing the soul of the poem and memorizing notable verses, than chugging through that beast they call the Canon, which is filled with such varied taste that only a pig (like Harold Bloom) could eat indiscriminately from it. Have TASTE, and that means choosing what's best and ignoring the rest.

>> No.4749106
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4749106

>>4749096
That copypasta is disgusting.

>>4748994
You're lucky that you can relate to pretty much anything. The rest of us have to dive deep into very intense and extremely specific things to get the barest glimmer of emotion out of it.

>> No.4749115

>>4749096
A fair bit of the poetry of antiquity is edible. As well as Homer & Virgil, the Greek tragedians are good and the pastoral poetry of Horace (and Virgil) is good.

Learning Hebrew and reading the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) is best decision you could make in regards to literature.

Medieval poetry is alright.Dante is great. Arthurian romance can be quite good. If you are from the north of Europe then you could read Beowulf instead of Homer, Virgil or Dante, because that is splendid poem.

Everything from the Reformation and beyond is to be avoided. It's not worth the time. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of genius artists from the last few centuries, but their genius is worthless because they lack proper taste. You get "style over substance" with them.

>> No.4749129

>>4749115
The reason why you get such a disgusting scene from Tolstoy is because he went for the "realism" aesthetic, and "reality" means "whatever is base and dirty" to most people. Realism is a really plebeian (please don't skewer me for using that word) aesthetic, and no literature of the realist period (and the romantic, modern and postmodern periods for that matter) is worth reading. Homer doesn't bother with the disgusting side of life. His poem is golden glory all the way through, and it never loses its savour. That's because Homer was a poet, and not a glorified journalist like Tolstoy.

>> No.4749147

An example of a terrible author that is in the Canon - Jane Austen's books are the equivalent of Sex & The City; gossip for curious girls.

>> No.4749175

Wait, seriously? People don't relate to what they're reading?

Goddamn, I was tearing up at Marmeladov's recount in C&P

>> No.4749188

>>4749030
Well as a kid I was obviously a lot more emotional. Probably teared up when Dumbledore died.
Just an assorted variety of classics. Greek tragedy atm, which you'd think would give rise to revulsion and horror, but no there's too much artifice in the way maybe.. Or I'm just a pleb

>> No.4749242

>>4749129
>Homer doesn't bother with the disgusting side of life

Not sure what else you'd call Odysseus slaughtering the suitors. Lock a bunch of men in a room, cut off their hands and feet, tear out their bowls, feed them to dogs ... pretty much the definition of "base and dirty."

>> No.4749274

>>4749242
But it's done in glory of his reclamation of his house. It's triumphant.

>> No.4749355

>>4749274
It's a gory revenge set-piece rendered in exploitative detail. It is about as triumphant as the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

You're just fetishizing the Classics.

>> No.4749371

>>4749355
There's no guiding morals in TCM. The suitors violated a sacred rule of the host-guest relationship. It's a triumph of right over wrong.