edgy /lit/ help

[Anonymous No.5947646]

What is it that makes a good book?
Is it your own subjective view on it or is it a general consensus that a book is good?

Im someone looking to get into /lit/ but i dont know if my current taste is an unwanted taste.
I've read plenty of fiction works, most are science fiction and fantasy novels but i look on here and it seems the works you are reading aren't contemporary novels or are fairly complex reads that i have no interest in such as philosophy or theology pieces.

What can i do to fix my way of thinking?
I dont want to be a edgy /lit/ wanna be.

[Anonymous No.5947813]

You have to read books that the universities consider "literary" and pretend that all of these books have a "deep insight into the culture of that time, and into the human condition in general".

My advice is to read any of these books:
The Holy Bible
Annals (Confucius)
Tao De Ching (Laozi)
Fables (Aesop)
The Republic, Phaedo, Phaedrus, Symposium (Plato)
Confessions, The City of God (St. Augustine)
Iliad OR Odyssey OR Aeneid OR Metamorphoses OR Beowulf OR Divine Comedy OR Paradise Lost
Philokalia

then forget gay ass literature and it's pretensions

[Anonymous No.5947924]

I gave you a list of epic poems there with "OR"s because I think it's best if you stick to one. The reason is that I think these poems are best recited out loud, and when they are memorized. It's good to memorize the lines of these poems. You should just pick which ever interests you most. You could also add medieval poems like Parzival. It's worth learning the original language for the poem you want to read (or, more appropriately, recite/sing). You can argue for having the Iliad AND the Odyssey rather than just one, because they are in the same language and by the same author. Memorizing these poems is easier than it sounds because of the rhythm and the sound and the imagery that the original poet combines in the verse, making it easy to remember. If you are going to read a translation you want a verse translation where a metre (rhythm) is used. Prose is a lot harder to memorize than verse with a fixed metre.

[Anonymous No.5947934]

and honestly, I would be more impressed by a guy who could recite the Aeneid than someone who had read everything there is to read and had only a vague reminiscence for each book. The good thing about memorization is that it actually helps your understanding of the thing. You pick up on a lot of small details when you memorize and memorized poems will appear more vivid in the imagination.

[Anonymous No.5947943]

if you're Portuguese the Portuguese have a good epic called the Lusiad. The closer the epic is to your home nation the better I think. If you are American then Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass is a decent substitute for a traditional epic poem.