How do you study literature

I've decided I'm going to get serious about literature but I'm having some difficulties.

Do you take notes? What kind of notes?

Highlights? Highlight what?

Should you study every book?

To what extent should you study the book?

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youtube.com/watch?v=cJd_VLJ3TH8
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just read books and quit being a fag about it

Notes of things you notice. Be it structural things, passages you like, characterization, whatever. Do it at your own pace. Study what you want to. Just don't think too hard about it.

Study what you deem relevant to the extent that satisfies you.
Underline what you think is memorable.
Write down what you think is noteworthy.
Read what interests you.

>Taking notes
>Underlining

Sure signs of a meme'd out fucking pleb

>doesnt underline memorable passages
kill yourself shit my man

Get some books about literary theory and different schools, learn about those and reading becomes even more rewarding.

>never annotates

Not gonna make it. Try /r/books.

>underlines spooks

CAN'T WAIT TO USE THIS LITTLE MORSEL IN POLITE CONVERSATION *tips fedora*

"Alan Watts once asked me 'What is your yoga?' and I told him 'Underlining sentences."
Joseph Campbell

Veeky Forums

This is probably even worse in the eyes of you people, but instead of underlining passages I like, I type them out on my compooper and save them into a text file and every once in a while I read them all for fun.

That's better than scribbling right on the page for sure

Not bad. I've been coming here since Veeky Forums began and I honestly don't give a rat's ass what most people on here think.

>This is probably even worse in the eyes of you people

Why would you think that Veeky Forums would shit on you for that? There is nothing inherently wrong with that. You are aggregating them all into one file so you can skim through a lot of different thoughts that resonated with you quickly without having to go from book to book all the time. That's a fine idea. That quick association of ideas might further help to give you some ideas of your own along the way.

Unless you're 12, you clearly don't have the constitution for it.

>Do you take notes?
No
>What kind of notes?
No
>Highlights?
No. Just remember them
>Highlight what?
The memorable parts
>Should you study every book?
No
>To what extent should you study the book?
Read essays about it

Basically this:

Ignore everyone telling you to "read what you want" or "read what interests you". Read the books listed in Bloom's The Western Canon.

I have a goodpoems.txt.

Ignore this user and instead just read what you want or interests you.

Philistine!

>talking to people

>holding on to supposedly "objective" standards
>calls others philistine

>it's all subjective!

Prove me wrong.

You're fedorable.

Hunter S. Thompson
>Working as a copy boy for Time magazine in New York City, Thompson appropriated armloads of office supplies to type Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby as well some of Faulkner's stories--an unusual method for learning prose rhythm.

>he can't prove me wrong

>I type them out
>not copy and pasting
pleb

Copy&paste from where? A lot of the books I read I can't find that specific quote on the internet anywhere.

>google search "name of book" filetype:pdf
>have a text file of it
>cntrl + F and "type passage words

It's not unusual at all. In the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, he talks about doing the exact same thing. Emulating greatness is an excellent tool to improve any skill.

Not every book has a PDF file online, user. Not everyone is reading popular YA, user.

prove me wrong then
youtube.com/watch?v=cJd_VLJ3TH8

Nothing in this video has anything to do with whether the quality of art is subjective or objective.

And I'm not a liberal either, you narrow-minded moron.

It related to the form of conversation, not the content. idiot

And regardless, prove me wrong.

Notes and highlighting will only confuse you, just read the book you want to. If you can't follow the storyline anymore you can just go to wikipedia or any other site and see what the general concensus is about the book/how others have summarized the important parts.
It'll help you even if you did understand your book, maybe you overlooked some metaphor or underlying story element. Maybe you even overthought something. Other peoples opinion can and will help you in ways you would've never thought about.

Good luck

There is no objective value to literature (art). Whatever you define as 'good' is based on your personal experience of emotional resonance and entertainment.

nice "proof"

Writing in books is degenerate behaviour, write the important quotes down somewhere else.