I'm trying to get into literature but everything I read is awful. The Old Man and the Sea, a supposed classic...

I'm trying to get into literature but everything I read is awful. The Old Man and the Sea, a supposed classic, reads like it was written by a high school student. So much repetition and awkward sentences.

>He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. In the first forty days a boy had been with him. But after forty days without a fish the boy’s parents had told him that the old man was now definitely and finally salao

What a weak, vague opening paragraph. The dialogue is awful to read as well. Meandering, pointless mess.

I had enough and moved onto The Dark Tower.

>The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed. The desert was the apotheosis of all deserts, huge, standing to the sky for what looked like eternity in all directions. It was white and blinding and waterless and without feature save for the faint, cloudy haze of the mountains which sketched themselves on the horizon and the devil-grass which brought sweet dreams, nightmares, death.

The desert was the apotheosis of all deserts? A professional writer wrote this garbage sentence? Who writes this shit?

Don't get me started on Infinite Jest.

I want YOU to recommend me a competently written book that isn't full of flowery dialogue or nonsense Veeky Forums. Every page has to be worth reading. Something with a point to it, you know?

That's actually a pretty gud description for King. He must have been reading McCarthy

stoner is all prose. no fluff but all direct emotional expression. best book i ever read

You know what all great authors have in common?

None of them sound the same. There are no rules to writing. Get good and develop a taste. Figure it out on your own.

>Every page has to be worth reading
You will never find a book that meets your expectations.

Is gemingway actually bad

no

Real talk. It would seem as though only the author would find meaning from every page. For us readers it’s just a matter of how much of it works for us.

Every word has to have a meaning and there must be meaning in the way each word is arranged.

>I want YOU to recommend me a competently written book that isn't full of flowery dialogue or nonsense Veeky Forums. Every page has to be worth reading. Something with a point to it, you know?
Read a science textbook.

yes

Blood Meridian. Dostoevsky. Fuck if u don't like fiction learn math and philosophy.

You are really bad at reading

get ready homo

What a shitty rec thread. I wish I made shitty rec threads instead of reading anything.

JR
The Recognitions
Darconville's Cat
Ulysses
As I lay Dying
Pale Fire
The Trial
East of Eden
Gloriana
The Sound and The Fury
Invisible Man
To The Lighthouse
Heart of Darkness
Wise Blood
Blood Meridian

>Stephen King

What's the difference between Stephen King and an axe? One's a tool for hacking, the other's a hack tool.

>hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy
>e=mc2: a biography of the world's most famous equation
>war and peace
>beasts and superbeasts
>the fist of God
>not a penny less, not a penny more
>thus spake zarasthura
>mein kampf
>Gerald's game


they're all totally different kinds of books, read them and see which you like, if any.

what did he meaning by this?

gay

The Gunslinger is the only King novel with genuine artistry to its prose

Get off the board if you can't understand basic English. You're an embarrassment to the language.

If you focus primarily on style and technique you're gonna have a bad time getting into literature. Even the strongest writers suffer or have weaker works, and if you cant go through those, then you might as well quit now. Not trying to be an asshole, but it doesnt look like you have the mental capability to go on if you're gonna be turned off by a book that has a "weak, vague opening paragraph" That's shit that MFA english professors say to their pseud students because they think a book is going to be good because it has to impress immediately. It just screams low attention span and inability to dig deeper and see what the writer is writing ABOUT instead of how.