What piece of literature has elicited the greatest/most profound feels for you?
And how much of these feels can one ascribe to the quality of the work over the context in which the book is read (i.e. reading whilst undergoing relationship issues/breakup; coping with a recent death; parental divorce; a particularly bitter spate of 'tfw no gf' etc)
Basically all of the "classic" or "canon" literature I've read has been provocative, difficult and (if I'm willing to wrestle with it) feelsy.
Naturally some seem more relevant than others, but I think it's a huge mistake to read literature as an augmentation or response to one's biography. It can be the other way around, and I think that's much of the "value" of literature.
Im a robot without feelings so the cold precision of delillo and darkness of mccarthy are the only works that arouse me.
So you're self-obsessed and unable to respond to anything you can't hold up as a mirror to yourself?
Kate Gompert talking about why she keeps trying to commit suicide in Infinite Jest
How did you reach that conclusion?
"Im a robot without feelings so the cold precision of delillo and darkness of mccarthy are the only works that arouse me."
"I am like X, so works like X are the only works that I enjoy"
"If a work is like me then I enjoy it"
"If I do not enjoy a work then it is not like me."
The Outsider by H.P. Lovecraft.
The quality of Lovecraft is always hit and miss for people. He is consistent in his work but I mean that some shit on him and say he can't write while some (like me) think he is just fine.
The context is what makes this short story for me. It made me realize that maybe it's okay to just not be normal. Even if you are a weird freak at least find company in such other types instead of trying to be part of humanity in general.
I was reading Book of the Short Sun while doing hospice for a dying person and my puppy had just died. How the book talks about the nature of death and aging deeply effected, then and just as much now. I was never young, I've never had fun, and I will never be able to accept my unending mistakes.
The Sound and the Fury depressed the fuck out of me.
Taipei