When did you realize, from interviews, that film makers, writers, and musicians don't spend large amounts of time watching / reading / listening to other people's stuff and that being a consumerwhore is a modern condition that leaves you irrelevant and in penury? The famous people are too busy making stuff and having fun to consume art.
The idea that you have to read X before you can do anything is a poisonous one pushed by the academia-media-publishing industrial complex in order to sell media.
How many books do you think Shakespeare and Dante read in their life? There are people on here that have the Pokemon Card mindset where they feel like they have to read the entire Western Canon up until the current day until they're allowed to write. The only people who have actually read the entire Canon are people like Harold Bloom who can't write any good fiction of their own. It's not like you can brute force talent by being extremely well-read, either you're able to write or you aren't.
>"Good peon... Focus on the barely disguised narcissistic memoirs of some dead person... Books are mind enriching... Consume more books... Never mind that the information age has made a mockery of information's value as a commodity among people... You're just so curious about the world and such a voracious reader, aren't you, peasant...
>This 1200 page post-modern masterpiece references 500 works that you must also read before you die... No, don't fall asleep while reading it! The cover quote calls it, "Frequently hilarious!" Maybe you haven't read enough to fully appreciate it?"
Luke Nelson
DELET THIS
Jose Wilson
What are you trying to say? People read because they want to read, not because they want to write. Usually when you want to write, you write, not read, because reading isn't writing. Was that delineation helpful?
Ryan Parker
Nigga u got rekt
Jayden Watson
there's a balance to be struck of course but you're a regrettable approximation of a human being.
Colton Hill
I wholeheartedly agree, OP.
Easton Sanders
OP, I wrote all that except the third paragraph. I agree and good job on resurrecting it with good additions.
Seriously, the OP is correct
Samuel Rodriguez
You're my hero Londonfrog, when will you be publishing your collected posts? If those hacks Tao Lin and Mira Gonzalez published their tweets then you should be able to as well.
Wrong: see Schopenhauer
Daniel Robinson
That doesn't contradict what I said, you're just reaching for an excuse to post it.
Aiden Nguyen
Most people's idea of a "balance" nowadays is far out of wack. Not to mention if you spend regular amounts of time using post-literate electronic media like radio, television, the internet, etc then you're not going to be able to be a good writer either.
Nicholas Nguyen
I think you underestimate the experience of immersion that is achieved through a solid and thorough understanding of different allusions in literature.
Landon Wright
I'm just amused that you're explicitly using someone else's thoughts to try and argue with me about this.
Wyatt Roberts
there is truth that reading for the sake of reading, going book after book has bad impact on your ability to write I always held it that studying few authors or poets gives more fruit than 10s or 100s.
Oliver Thomas
I have started to realize it recently while reading Ulysses. At some point, about quarter in the book, it hit me "Do I really need to read this crap? I bet no one successful or fun would waste his time reading this."
Cameron Roberts
It's just something writers say because if actual writing processeses would sound oretentious to describe in interviews
Jayden Cooper
This is very true. Deep knowledge of a few writers or period is much more valuable than just general knowledge of many. You should look up the study methods of Kenzaburo Oe, he talks about in his Paris Review interview.
Cameron King
I'm not arguing with you, thats another bad habit one needs to learn how to drop.
Lincoln Jones
>people that make shit contemporary art don't read or look for past inspiration
Wow... Veeky Forums BTFO...
Owen Reyes
that's a bad example though because Joyce is filled with references to other works. /r/ing the annotated page from Finnegans Wake
Tyler Barnes
Yes we should stop reading at all and just write whatever we want thinking we are the best. Nobody will read anything since everybody will be writing but it doesn't matter you have to create and be creative, why do you want to not repeat the same mistakes people were doing back then.
Jayden Perez
To disagree, then. Still, all words are ideas we learned from someone else. You can deconstruct all language to pieces in search of a place to build something original but it's not going to help. Fact remains you need to strike a balance.
Nolan Jenkins
Dude stop reading public domain PDFs and start buying popculture items! My going concern is going under!
PORG PORG PORG PORG
You've resigned yourself to being a piece of the spectacle
Elijah Russell
>pdfs
So you're saying you're reading on a screen? That's even worse than not reading at all.
Charles Cooper
I also read for minimal cost from my closest available library
Now work your 8hour shift so you can consume more entertainment media faggot wagecuck
Cooper Lewis
no no no NO NO!! I can't use the thoughts of others to inspire my own, and you shouldn't be able to either! STOP READING RIGHT FUCKING NOW
Gavin Parker
Reading comprehension, lad. There's nothing wrong with reading for learning and pleasure, but the modern "consumption" checklist mindset pushed by publishers that you frequently see on here regarding what/how you should read is harmful.
Bentley Torres
Well literatry culture is dead due to electronic media so there will be hardly anyone improving or advancing the novel as an art form anymore, all the stuff written thats not light-novels or various new hybrid literart forms will just be eulogys or elegys for by-gone days.
David Evans
*literary
Anthony Gomez
Reading works that are in public domain and easily accesible online, and, which, as consequence, can cheaply be printed at a copyist's, if somebody disdains to read on their screen.
Reading is one of the least consumption-prompted hobbies in the current age. Shitposting on Veeky Forums all day costs you more.
William Hernandez
>Reading works that are in public domain and easily accesible online, and, which, as consequence, can cheaply be printed at a copyist's, if somebody disdains to read on their screen, is very fucking cheap, not even accounting for how other hobbies comparing to it*
John Kelly
>dead due to electronic media >john green and ya still sells insane amounts I can sense that there is some kind of other problem but I just cant put my finger on it. Maybe it is for good that I can't , as that is what I was told.
Jeremiah Walker
As part of the last dying breath of print literary culture the academia-media-publishing-industrial complex has been pushing the consumptive mindset regarding books as hard as they can until the crash.
Andrew Jenkins
>tfw so intelligent you can't ass yourself to proofread the correction of your not-proofread post
And reading public domain doesn't funnel a penny in their pockets.
Gavin Myers
>When did you realize, from interviews, that film makers, writers, and musicians don't spend large amounts of time watching / reading / listening to other people's stuff and that being a consumerwhore is a modern condition that leaves you irrelevant and in penury? The famous people are too busy making stuff and having fun to consume art. Don't know what you're talking about, user. I've usually seen the opposite. Anyone worth their salt can name a number of influences and follows what other people in their field are doing.
Alexander Moore
>How many books do you think Shakespeare and Dante read in their life? You really HAD to pick the most erudite premodern writers as your examples?
>The idea that you have to read X before you can do anything is a poisonous one pushed by the academia-media-publishing industrial complex in order to sell media. Yeah, I bet they are making so much cash from all those sold Homers and Don Quijotes. B&N's profits rose 46% in the last quarter thanks to the first translation of Homer by a female, do you believe the rumours about them buying off Exxon? Literally the only people I see telling me that I have to read the classics are Veeky Forums faggots. This year I personally spent literally $6 on dead writers' books, 4 of which were for a second-hand collection of poetry (ie, the "complex" made $2 on me this year).
Juan Gomez
A lot of those people read a fuckload. There's nothing inherently wrong with consumption - the same with creation, or destruction.
Brody Jackson
>I need to read a lot so I will be able to fill my writings with references to other people's works. It'll make me seem so cool and erudite! I'd rather read illiterate people's autobiographies, which actually exist, than your useless storm of pomo horseshit.
Julian Long
>dante >not the most well-read figure of his time
tha's where your wrong kidd0
Henry Moore
almost like music doesnt translate to literature
Angel Martinez
A long time ago. I consume media for escapism and I'm fine with it. Some people read shitty YA novels; I read books that Veeky Forums approves of.
However, I will say that consuming media does tend to help define personality in a way that's not represented in your point. It's hard to avoid feeling that people who don't go out of their way to do difficult things (and that sometimes includes reading) are more boring than those who do. It's something I've noticed coming back to university as a master's student. These kids literally do the easiest thing they can and surround themselves in a bubble instead of pushing themselves to do something harder outside of the university 'experience'. I have every reason to suspect that they're less well-rounded because of it even though in most cases they're lovely people.
So, yeah. I don't think you're right in saying that it's pointless to consume media. I think in a lot of cases it makes a person more interesting so long as they avoid the egotism that can go along with it. But I agree it's pointless consuming media for the sake of achieving something else. You can certainly do it to find inspiration but if you want to do something do that; then maybe come back to reading when you feel you've hit a wall.
Ian Fisher
OP you realize the Divine Comedy is stuffed with references to ancient literature, ancient poetry, ancient history, medieval literature, ancient philosophy, and medieval theology, right? Not to mention its copious borrowing from Scripture?