This is your daily reminder that there are no well-read users on this board

mostly amateur xianxia/fantasy fanfiction
and written some
I opened Redwall and Watership Down and was amazed at the literary quality.
I tried to read The War of Art but even with the short chapters. I gave up about fifteen chapters in.
Also tried to read a book by a hypnotist about losing weight. Read 2 pages, barely.
I have likely read eight novels worth of Veeky Forums posts and I mostly watched anime and listened to podcasts in january.

I am probably the average Veeky Forums poster who despite approaching wizardhood am stuck in an eternal childish mindset, aware of my situation enough to regret it and habitually chained enough to be unable and unwilling to stop or change it.
To be an average Veeky Forums poster theorized in this thread, you would have to actually like books. Then you would wonder why those people aren't reading the books they like. So the natural majority of the people here are the pseuds such as I who have all the time in the world to stalk the threads and type out unnecessarily autistic replies like this one.

If you want instructive answers to questions about lit, ask on.

I am well-read. No a college professor, but still well-read. I promise. ;)

We have our Lord and Savior Sebastian among us.

>skims novellas so he can pad his goodreads
>has vapid and/or nonexistent opinions on books he's "read"

yea sounds about right for a Veeky Forums patron deity

Fools! You just have to close all the irrelevant threads. You should have about 50 threads hidden at any given time. And remember the shitpost to content ratio is like 100:1

How are you liking Main Street? Sinclair Lewis is probably my favorite American author from that time period! I don't see much about him here.

Virgil's Georgics and his Aeneid, in translation by Manuel Odorico Mendes.

An anthology of poetry by Filinto Elisio.

Pound's anthology Confucius to Cummings.

An collection of love poems written by Robert Graves.

Two history books which I haven't finished yet.

The correspondence of Eça de Queiroz.

In addition to that, I wrote 20 words in my diary, plus 32 sonnets, half a song (canzone - an Italian/Southern-French form), a few quatrains etc.

hiding threads is not at all worth the effort, just don't click on them

>there are no well read users on this board
>i'm on this board writing OP
>i'm not well read

implying i'm going to take the advice of some plebeian.

Long as there are readers there will be people wanting to discuss literature. Long as there are nerdy middleclass bookworms reading the most obtuse shit they can there will be people seeking a place like Veeky Forums. It's not a board that can just 'die'

Besides I have good discussion on here all the time. A lot of this board does seem to be fairly well read. At least the meme trilogy, anyways.

I'm actually surprised by some of the recommendations that Veeky Forums comes up with, but it's rare. It's definitely not the sort of stuff that you could just pretend you knew about, though that doesn't necessarily mean people have read the books they recommend, but they definitely do read ABOUT books. And, really, that's what we're all here to do, right? Read and talk about books, not actually read them. Including you. So get over yourself, mate.

This is the best place on the Internet for literary discussion. It's not good, but it's fun.

i think i'm addicted to researching and collecting books. save me, friend.

>translations
get some taste, cucl

This year I've focused less on reading and more on my writing. I'm about 50k words into a novel that I expect to reach about 70k, so it's almost done.
Is anyone ever going to read it or care about it other than me and maybe my mother? No, probably not. But at least I can say I put my money where my mouth is and put in the work to do something most people can't/won't/don't do.

literally everyone hates you.

switch to discord desu.

>judging your book by word count
I want the shitty amateur writers to leave

t. FBI

Discord is a government plant

I love researching books as well and then either finding physical copies or downloading them.
It's really sad.
Before I was really interested in literature, I read more. I probably got through 4 high quality novels a month. But then I started doing more research about literature and authors, making lists of books I wanted to read instead of actually reading, and now I read maybe one trashy novel every six months. Meanwhile I spend the rest of my time at the library or bookstore hunting for books and telling myself I'll get around to reading them one day.

Some books satisfy me just by existing. It sounds pretentious and lame and like something a true pseud would say, but I really do feel content knowing that I have copies of certain books within reach, even if I never intend to read them myself.

>he thinks writing a novel is an accomplishment of merit
my man, take a stroll through Ammy Zahm some time. Lit is more dead than god is. Writing to show all those other guys that you 'put your money where your mouth is'? Do you think that somehow noble? appealing to the vast crowds who not only don't care but actively tell you to simmer down and die so more resources can be allocated to themselves? why in the fuck would you ever fucking do this?

i'm all for writing, but your reasons are fucking insane.

Odorico Mendes was one of the great masters of the Portuguese language. His vocabulary in itself is already enormous. He reduced the Odyssey from 12000 verses to about 9000, which shows just how incredible was his power of compression. I read his translation because of its quality. To me, his versions of Homer and Virgil are among the essential book of my native language, and I read them in order to absorb his technique and apply them to my own poetry writing.

Also, I read him because I know neither Greek nor Latin. It's not necessary, however. Fernando Pessoa only knew Portuguese, French, English, Spanish and some Italian, and yet he was a great poetry. His whole library has been put on the internet, and all the Greek/Latin books are in translation.

I'm absolutely not "judging" it by its wordcount, merely documenting my progress. Would you have been as mad if I had just said "I'm almost done?" and made no mention of word count? probably not, you fuckface retard

stay bitter, pleb

You don't know my reasons, but okay :) I'll take your perspective into consideration

Obviously I meant to say 20 *thousand* words in my diary.

I would make no sense even remembering having written just 20 words...

I started my diary in December and it's going on pretty well. Probably it will give me much entertainment of the future when I read the detailed accounts of my dreams, which are all followed by an attempt at explaining them.

if discord is a government plant its definitely not the american government. 100% chinese sies

>Odorico Mendes was one of the great masters of the Portuguese language. His vocabulary in itself is already enormous. He reduced the Odyssey from 12000 verses to about 9000, which shows just how incredible was his power of compression.
This isn't impressive. You're reading a paraphrase.

I would judge it by how "finished" I feel it is. By how close the story is to conclusion, etc. Instead of mindlessly typing to fill a word count.

how many times have you rewritten your list? i have a notebook full, just entire pages crossed out furiously.. page after page after page. if i can read this list, i'll die happy. this is the epitome of what is written by human hand, i stare at my bookshelf, hell i did it last night, heaving back and forth on my bed, rocking in obsession, pointing at my books, calling their names quietly in this order or that, looking to my sleeping wife in frustration, putting my head in my hands. i wish i were exaggerating, but this was my entire night last night. i feel revolted in my obsession, wishing i could go back to a prison cell where i read my most, a literal prison cell where time afforded the leaves of the greatest authors to slip past my eyes, the abandonment of the whole universe, the exertion of myself against the void, if only to lose myself within the world developed by the master of this or that pen at the moment. ah, sorry.. nevermind.

Right and so the story has reached the beginning of its third act around 50k words, meaning I'll be able to conclude the story within another 20k words, as long as I maintain the same narrative pace that I've established. It's not that complicated and certainly doesn't imply that I think MY BOOK IS GOOD BECAUSE I HIT 50 THOUSAND WORDS THEREFORE I AM A GREAT AND ACCOMPLISHED WRITER which is what you seem to think I think.

I have really enjoyed it thus far, but it's difficult to read without thinking of Winesburg, Ohio. I say this not because Sinclair Lewis is a lesser author, I just enjoy Winesburg a bit more. My professor pointed out that, while Sinclair Lewis can tell an excellent story (his eye for detail is phenomenal), there aren't very many authorial flourishes in his writing in comparison to Winesburg.

Also, there are instances (so far) in which I think the satire fails to achieve its effect. A case would be when Carol drifts off into a thought which yields incredibly complex ideas/insults which, to me, seem more the thoughts of Sinclair Lewis as opposed to Carol. I think he occasionally wants a platform for his own thoughts, but he has to do it through a character that he's already satirizing. That's a bit of a problem.

Those are my only gripes so far and, overall, I've really enjoyed it. If you haven't read Winesburg, I recommend it.

Funny you say that it isn't talked about much on Veeky Forums; it's hardly talked about anywhere! A professor at my uni does a class called "Great books nobody reads anymore" and I believe Main Street is on the syllabus.

not sure if satirical post or actual madman

That is definitely impressive in many aspects. I don't know the original, but Odorico Mendes seems to tell it all.

One of the means by which he achieves it is by creating compound words - 'olhitáurea', for instance, meaning 'she who has the eyes of a bull'.

I do not care how faifhtul it is to the original. All it matters to me is that it's one of the great technical - and many times aesthetical - achievements of the language I write in.

Różewicz and Celine

we've had threads like these ever since the start
Veeky Forums was never good

>I do not care how faifhtul it is to the original
then read something else lol
or, at the very least, please don't ever try to tell anyone you have read the original, if that's really how you feel

Came here after few years, its only gotten worse like most boards.

> don't ever try to tell anyone you have read the original

When did i ever try to do that? When did I ever pretend to have any nowledge of Greek and Latin? You don't even know me, my friend.

>then read something else lol

No. I am a starting poet who writes in Portuguese. I need a great knowledge of the best poetry written in my language. I need to absorb the techniques, the style, the colours, the scenes, the music. Odorico Mendes is essential reading in the canon of Brazilian literature, and I have read him, reread him, and will keep rereading him until the day I die.

Odds are that it's actually stayed about the same, but when you first formed an opinion of this and other boards you were more retarded than you are now so you didn't notice how shitty it was.

So that's actually a good thing, it means you've developed as a person and stopped being so retarded.

>I need a great knowledge of the best poetry written in my language. I need to absorb the techniques, the style, the colours, the scenes, the music.
all you really need is talent, maybe a little bit of genius. but without those two things, I guess you would need all that horseshit

i wish it were satirical, friend.

Do you have some sort of mental illness? Diagnosed, I mean. Don't waste my time with your malingering nonsense, if not.

You don't know anything. You're the kind of person OP is talking about.

oh how i wish it were satirircal...

you're a pretty cool guy.

no mental illness that i subscribe to. i have been to six mental hospitals in my life, and in and out of prison, though, so take it with a grain of salt. i have no discernible mental disorder though, nothing that has stuck.

kind of you to say.

I clearly know more than you.
I've had poetry published and I'm working on my first novel, which is set to be published before Q1 2018. Trust me, I didn't have to obsessively read and re-read anything to absorb the techniques and style or have great knowledge of anything other than how not to be mediocre.

So, this is a /sincere/ thread?

Last year I only read around 7-8 books. It's been two years since I started In Swann's Way and I haven't finished it yet. It took me almost a year to finish Crime and Punishment, and I've only read around 30% of what is in my shelf

No, he's really not. Don't encourage this absolute mongoloid.

oh, i see, you were being rude. waste your time? your time. you think somehow your time is precious, also, if you prey on mentally diseased people for some sort of 'use', then you're quite likely a terrible fucking person. as if i have to be some particular way to entertain your kind. you who have not had a single thought. have you ever even had a long thought? a single unsnapped thread through which days spin themselves? i doubt you can even last an hour without flitting away, you birdbrain you. what a jerk you are.

i have dozens of different tabs open right now so today i've got a couple of pages of books to write down. how's your list?

absolute mongoloid. you're such a rude fella. what's it for, all this spite? whatcha protecting, mr. critic?

Jesus, lock this retard up.
Please, go back to whichever prison it is that let you out and feel free to do all the reading you want until you die there.

I used to read and post here like, 4 years ago, it seemed much better back then, definitely see less literature discussed than I used to.

well, i restrict myself with every list, try to pare it like stephen dedalus' author's fingernails. it's down to fifty or so books at the moment, can fit on a postcard. it has become more of a mental map that shifts with every day as i stare, agonizing, at my bookshelf.

Where else are you supposed to go if not uni and not here?

i really hope you grow up some day.

i doubt you can keep your characters from sounding like yourself.

Why did you go to prison?

violence.

You said:

>all you need is talent

If you know more than me, you know that's false.

And yes, you do need to read and reread. That's not my opinion. That's the opinion of canonical writers who are better than you. George Steiner, for instance, even says you have to memorize, and Socrates (though not a writer, a great thinker nonetheless) complained about writing because he said it would make people stop memorizing things. The list includes many other names...

lol

memorization is a patient exertion of will over the mind.

By the way, your very disregard for poetic translation is already enough to show you know little about poetry. All great poets were also translators and have profited from reading translations of poetry - Shakespeare's favorite book was Golding's Ovid; Fernando Pessoa's, Fitzgerald's Khayamm.

If you have published poetry, it's almost certainly very bad. Even if it has good reviews (most poetry, even that which receives good reviews, is usually forgotten in 50 years at most).

yes, quite funny, isn't it? i suppose some must go through a moment or two of being raskals.

It's not funny, but it does say everything I need to know about your character.
You deserve all your misery. Just because you're obsessing about books and not celebrity's feet doesn't make you intellectual or noble.

I am trying to read more books by women of color this year. I am well aware of Roxane Gay and Zadie Smith.

Who should I be watching for this year? Someone like Angela Flournoy that we don't know about now, but has some buzz.

If that's too hard, what women of color writer from the past have I likely overlooked?

you think that's why i wish to read?

you think an analysis of my character is going to secure you in your feeling of superiority?

it's funny that you think somehow you have a right to judge anyone.

for the sake of my own health, i'll tell you why i read. because of entertainment. it's even entertaining to write lists all the time. i miss in some wats the entertainment that literature gives me, and my patience is thin in freedom.

now on the question of intellectualism and nobility, i have no qualms with nobility, that's a silly mechanism of hubris people like yourself use to define themselves as somehow superior. intellectually, i wouldn't bother reading fiction if that were my ideal as an individual. another mechanism of hubris used by people like yourself, intellectualism.

Borges said he read for entertainment too. He called himself a 'literary hedonist' if I am not mistaken. He also admitted to not reading all of Ulysses, even though he admired very much the parts which he read and wrote about them (I think he was the first in Argentina to do so), and so on.

Also, Veeky Forumszens shouldn't care much about reading too many books. May Shelley read some 45 in the year of 1820 (she mentioned all her readings in letters, diary notes etc.), with an average of some 50 pages a day, if I remember correctly (I went to google books, looked at the copies of the very same editions she read, and counted the pages on excel). That didn't stop her writing a book which is more famous than anything you guys will ever write, and didn't stop Percy Shelley, who would probably despise all of you (though he wouldn't admit) from falling in love with her and giving her writing tips.

>muh typical complaint on the befoulment of Veeky Forums at the hands of plebeians
Oh shut up.

just because it's not the best it could be doesn't mean it isn't the best there is

If the discussion is not good, even if it is fun, then it is hardly discussion. It's banter. I do that with gas station clerks and cashiers. Not for rhetoric to gain insight.

Go to a uni, or jr college, or library. Find people around you to talk to in person, and who you can feel confident in gaining valuable insight. This board, and this site, is like swiming through a lake of shit for a diamond. Seeking out people in person is more like gaining access to pre-dug mines which were are known to sometimes put out diamonds. They both require work, but one is a lot more pleasant.

Winesburg, Ohio too. Definitely a favorite.
A Good Man is Hard to Find
I just finished The Idiot
The Aleph
Just started Franny and Zooey

I will admit that the more I read the less I come here and I've completely lost the will and energy to argue with anyone here anymore

>comes to 4cuck expecting """""serious discussion"""""
>gets angry with all the funposting

You have to go back.

bernd please

I've read 14 books so far. In a few hours I'll have another one finished

>tfw well read
>tfw all charity is thankless
feels all right, mr zimmerman, try being a mensch