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/lit/ - Literature

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705227 No.705227 [Reply] [Original]

I like to sound smart...

What books can /lit/ recommend me to read, to aid me in my quest?

Pic unrelated...

>> No.705235

the koran

>> No.705239

*sigh*
To who? Hipsters think different things are smart than university professors and so on. Define your target audience, or else actually be well-read, which is impossible for us non-geniuses.

>> No.705247

>>705239
Professors, fuck Hipsters.

>> No.705248

>>705247
Meh, real smart people in general, actually.

>> No.705255

heidegger

>> No.705270

>>705248
Ok, this is a difficult term to deal with. I don't have an established concept of "smart", which is in my opinion an underdefined concept. I'll speak in terms of the English professors I've met. Read Joyce if you think you'll be able to discuss it intelligently, which, if you're like me, you won't. Start with A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Read Proust, Dostoevsky, and Faulkner (also the Tale of Genji to be safe) to cover your regional bases. Beyond that, you'll have to understand the person you're trying to impress. Find a genre or specific author you need to read. Academics take pride in both liking things that others dislike and disliking things that others enjoy. There isn't a cure-all author that everyone respects.

>> No.705272

>>705255
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
Who could think you under the table.

>> No.705276

>>705227
Post this on /sci/

>> No.705277

Not OP, how do I impress Hipster chicks so I can stick my penis in them?

>> No.705278

>>705277
Jonas Brothers

>> No.705290

You like to sound smart?

Shut up. It's the quickest way.

>> No.705295

OP, good luck trying to sound smart because you've made one of the dumbest threads on /lit/.

You're like a guy going to /ck/ and saying 'I like to be fat. What fast food can you recommend to make me fat?"

It doesn't matter what books you read, just that you read a lot of them, dumbass.

>> No.705299

>>705272
>>705255
Oh wait, philosophy? Heidegger, yes. Also Kant (ugh), Hume, the Greeks, Nietzsche (so you can explain how posers misunderstand him) and possibly Schopenhauer. For contemporary philosophy: Rawls, Derrida, and for bonus points, Baudrillard. Forgive any spelling errors.

>> No.705312

>>705277
Catcher in the Rye, On the Road (Dharma Bums for Bonus Points), Sound and the Fury. Anything French, especially if it's still in French. Something more "classical" (but still American) like Invisible Man or Grapes of Wrath for bonus points. The important part is that no other hipsters your hipster chicks have met have read it, but they're also aware that it's "good". Ironically, being well-read is good for this, too.

>> No.705317

>>705312
Oh, and like Lady Gaga. I don't know why.

>> No.705329

>>705312
So basically the books I read in high school...

>> No.705330

Contrary to popular belief - reading philosophy is not impressive. Every reader goes through a philosophy period and ingests most of the things everyone else ingests in these periods.

That said, Marcel Proust's Remembrances of Things Past. The entire series. I meet very, very few people who have read this.

Here's a hint. Books that are required reading at - any - time before undergraduate are not books that will impress a professor.

Kant, Hume, Catcher in the Rye and "anything French" are hilarious. Welcome to honors English First grade, introductory philosophy, and "anything French" . . . lol. Jesus.

Proust, beyond being impressive, is actually a right of passage for any seriously literate readers. It's more telling if you haven't read it.

For actual philosophy that will impress: Heidegger's Being and Time. Hegel's (complete) Science and Logic. Finnegan's Wake by Joyce. There are others, but the real line starts at Proust. if you've read all the others and not read Proust. . . .

>> No.705334

>>705312
>>Catcher in the Rye
I was about to go mad at you, but then I remembered- 'looking' smart.

>> No.705338

>>705299
>Who could think you under the table.
Sorry to be an illiterate fuck, but what the hell does that mean.

>> No.705349

>>705338
Monty Python song.

>> No.705360

>>705329
Precisely.
>>705330
Someone didn't read the headers. Perhaps I just went to a shitty university, but I found that my professors were just so happy that one of their students had read anything at all that they were extremely appreciative when I demonstrated even a competent knowledge of ANYTHING.

>> No.705377

>>705360

Sure, it all depends. Trying to impress anyone with your literature is pretty amusing. My library has not, to this day, got me laid, hasn't got me a job, and didn't get any of my scholarships, grants, or accepted into grad school.

So few people in our peer group reads that most people older than us are appreciate of any amount of interest.

>> No.705388

>>705377

Lol, I must be tired. "Are appreciate". Haha. "reads". Fmeh

Another point I'd like to make: Proust should be read, whether you're trying to look smart or not, simply because it's exquisite.

>> No.705395

>>705330

>reading French lit will not impress anyone
>blahblahblah slobber all over proust's dick

>> No.705397

>>705395
"anything french" =! proust

>> No.705400

>>705395

If you can't delineate the distance between "reading anything French" and reading Remembrances of Things Past - hilarious.

>> No.705420

Ah, the hourly Proust troll.

>> No.705432

>>705312
was reading another thread, and would like to make some additions. Specifically: Pynchon, Heller, Kafka, and Camus.

>> No.705438

>>705420

Not a troll. People like John Lennon were of the opinion that, to be intelligent, one must first have read Proust.

Proust is widely read by scholars. Proust is universally appreciated by intellectuals.

Proust is not read by /lit/. Perhaps you, along with the OP, can be one of the first to make an attempt.

>> No.705440

>>705432
As a matter of fact, if you can google search their name and either "existential" or "post-modern", it's a good bet.

>> No.705445

>>705432

Heller . . . Catch 22. Required reading in 8th grade.

Kafka is even earlier. The Stranger was ninth grade.

And then you have Pynchon, which is true. People that I meet that have actually read and ingested Gravity's Rainbow - not just making an attempt at it and claiming to - are few and far between.

>> No.705454

>>705445
Kafka is read pretty early, but he is also pretty universally well-regarded as an important writer, one with an excellent prose style, and one who often touches on important themes. so i think he's a good one to read. Heller, not so much.

>> No.705457

>>705438
It's a troll inasmuch as, one, you make intelligence conditional on having read Proust, and, two, you use that argument to straight-up insult /lit/ and all its posters.

Have you made it past Swann's Way?

>> No.705466

>>705457

Long ago, having literate parents.

/lit/ does not need to be insulted. Few on /lit/ are claiming to read anything that would impress literate scholars. Well, very few are. Those few will have, or will in the future, read all of Remembrances of Things Past.

>>705454

Absolutely, I agree with you about Kafka. That said, he is universally read and generally fairly easy. He becomes even easier simply because you are walked through him multiple times before you graduate high school.

>> No.705471

>>705466
I am, frankly, finding it extremely difficult to believe that you are not either generalizing from extremely specific circumstances, or trolling really hard.

Do you mind telling me a bit about your personal life? Country of origin, education, etc?

>> No.705481

>>705471

Southern California. South Orange County. Private school education.

Currently crossing my fingers for a Fulbright scholarship for Ireland. I imagine I'm also slightly older and more accomplished than the majority of the people that use this board. Those things aside, it changes nothing about Proust.

>> No.705483

Going to sleep guys, this thread has been helpful.

Going to have to start reading away!

>> No.705498

>>705481
See, here's where I don't understand your point of view. Given that you're going for a Fulbright scholarship, I don't doubt that you've read Proust, but I also don't doubt that you are, in some sense, exceptional.

The fact of the matter is that most people have never read Proust, and indeed even those who consider themselves intellectual have never read Proust; one of my favorite facts about the publishing industry is that volumes of Remembrance of Things Past after Swann's Way simply do not sell, because almost no one actually gets through Swann's Way.

Certainly, I don't argue that it would be impressive to read Proust; of course it would, and I do plan on reading him, even if I haven't yet. I don't agree that Proust is the sine qua non of belonging to the intellegentsia, that without reading him you will never be intelligent or literate.

Also, frankly, I don't know of any school system in America that reads Heller in eighth grade and Kafka in 9th, or that actually walks one through Kafka multiple times. That is extraordinarily rare - in fact astonishing to me. I don't honestly believe it's true.

>> No.705542

>>705498

Remembering back, I began on Metamorphosis in sixth grade.

I did spend a few years of high school in Maryland, outside of D.C., attending an IB (International Baccalaureate) school. These are much more rigorous programs. It's hard to believe that public school honor's English doesn't move into similar, if not parallel, reading lists.

Proust, indeed, is very difficult. Reading 46 pages on a description of how he drinks his tea becomes something, at first glance, one must conquer. It takes one appreciating, and enjoying, his style in order to finish. If you finish, I promise, you will appreciate the effort expended.

Contrarily: when I read Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake, I was not left feeling anything remotely close to appreciative.

-

What are the standard Honor's reading lists for public school?

>> No.705551

>>705498
I've read In Search of Lost Time through twice, and am about to embark on my third time.

I've met more than ten other people who have read it all the way through...but part of that is because I sat in on a class that covered the whole thing (first three books one semester, last four books the next).

In the class, we all pretty much agreed that Within a Budding Grove is the turning point. If you can make it through the first half of "Place Names: The Place," you'll finish the whole thing.

>> No.705552

>>705542
Unless IB is much more rigorous than AP, I don't think IB can be the only explanation for it. Was most of this reading self-motivated or required?

The honors program at my high school, which I think was pretty standard, was reading stuff like Tale of Two Cities freshman year, Clockwork Orange and Catcher in the Rye sophomore year, and Great Gatsby and Scarlet Letter junior year. I didn't take AP English senior year because I wanted to take a film course instead (it was awesome) but I think they read stuff like Ethan Frome.

>> No.705578

>>705551

I'm, in all seriousness, a bit jealous. This sounds like a dream course. Was the professor a Proust scholar?

One day, I will have the free time. . . .

>>705552

Required reading. And, I'm actually a bit surprised. I read the Scarlet Letter in the seventh grade. A Clockwork Orange? Required Reading? God, I would have subbed that out for George Elliot any day.

>> No.705585

>>705578
Oh, I agree, it's completely easy, I could have read any of that shit in the seventh grade. But that is really what is typical in most schools, I think.

Perhaps you understand why I am so doubtful of your claims

>> No.705593

>>705585

Absolutely. Again, I don't believe most people who frequent /lit/ are looking to be seen as, or to be, literary scholars.

Enjoy Proust when you do move into him.

>> No.705595
File: 13 KB, 209x168, 234523.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
705595

>Catch 22. Required reading in 8th grade.
>Kafka is even earlier.

>> No.705780

Reading books doesn't impress anyone whose intelligence is worth a damn. Discussing books with them, however, does.

Sadly, I've only met 2 people who are willing to talk about Joyce at length... And my reading goal this summer was to finish Proust's In Search of Lost Time, but life got in the way.

>> No.705862

Why are you after books if you wish to sound smart? All we really need is Wikipedia.

>> No.705868

>>705226

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>> No.705880

>>705226

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>> No.706716

>>705578
He wasn't fully a Proust scholar...but he had taught Swann's Way in his Freshman level lit course for a few years, and had read the entire sequence many, many times.

And yeah...it was a dream course. I felt bad for the people who HADN'T read the book before, though...even spread out over more than thirty weeks, people stil had t read 100 pages of Proust per week.