/lit/ - Literature

>>15251406
I use a notebook for this, I'm not an animal, lad.

>defacing your books
Degeneracy at its finest

>>15251415

Ok, let's go pass the cynicism here. Same question: what type of notes do you do in a notebook? Do you use any sort of symbols/code you understand? What do you write in this notebook of yours?

>>15251422
>>15251422
Would you like to elaborate a little more on that? I mean, this book I bought is mine and I don't see anything wrong with writing a little more of context for my own understanding.

>>15251406
>scribbling in books
Absolute cringe. Only the modern bugman engages in such debasing behaviour.

>>15251449
> I bought is mine and I don't see anything wrong
>its fine as long as there is consent and they're not not harming anyone!

>>15251406
>>15251449

>literal kiddie-tier handwriting
>doesn't see anything degenerate with defacing books
yeah, go figure.

>>15251484
Here's another pic. I just recently bought Moby Dick in one of those cheap and awful-looking Wordsworth editions. The first chapter is really fucking sweet, if I may.

>>15251436
Yes, I have my own symbology. Essentially I write down words I don't know, phrases that I liked, write down every character's name, cultural references (namedropping), and also general notes (my thoughts, similar things I've read/watched, inconsistencies, "hey he stole this from x!", etc).

>>15251514
Do you find it somewhat confusing or tiresome to be coming back and forth between a notebook and the book itself? I certainly do, though it's also sometimes convoluted to go back and forth from the dictionary and the book and vise versa. Do you use symbols? I have a friend who use them for immediate identification.

You sound like a mentally deficent person, original poster. Not only defacing your books, stripping away from them any value they could garner, but also doing senseless things that serve no purpose like believing a mere word look up in the dictionary is, somehow, going to help with sealing it's meaning. Not to mention that 'saving sentences' is something thus has to memorize i would expect from your average brainless reader who can't formulate his own quotes. Cease existing.

>>15251546
Yes I use symbols, essentialy the letter of every category of note. That way I can identify them easily. I think of my notes of a thing in itself, that's why I don't want to mess with the author's text (or my books, which costed me money to acquire).

>>15251501
Holy cringe. Are you an woman, anon?

>>15251556
>Stripping away from them any value they could garner
Do you hoard books to sell them after? why do you need to "garner" their monetary value, when you can increase their whole value making them more understandable for yourself?
Granted, no fiddling in the dic will make you any Shakespeare, yet I don't understand you so cocksure-stance of dismissing the whole idea as deluded or flat out useless.
>average brainless reader who can't formulate his own quotes.
I don't know, I get what you mean in here. I just think you could've said it way better, and so I won't dare to go where I think you're going at just for you to say "oh, m8ty, I was talking about that other thing that my vapid comment meant all along"

>>15251501
My sister is like this as well. I never let her touch my books.

>>15251596
Rethoric question; everybody knows here is women-barren.

>>15251567
Sure thing then, can you give me an example of ">essentially the letter of every category of note" I don't mean it in a callous way; after all, I posted the question expecting idly vivid comments after I talked about the fact I ink-wrote on my books.

>>15251406
This is all busy work that doesn't at all aid in retention and synthesis.

>>15251650
I worded that poorly. I'm not been cynical about your comment being idly vapid, but just aknowledging what the nature of this thread would be. I am still interested in the symbols you use - bad syntax

>>15251681
I don't want to sound postmodernist in here or anything, nor sound trapped on a nook saying "I know better than you guys, can't you see?" but have you considered trying writing shit down while reading?

>>15251650
Of course. I use G for general notes, Q for quotes, L for lexicon, R for references, C for characters, ! for extraordinary/enlightening stuff.

>>15251707
>I use G for general notes, Q for quotes, L for lexicon, R for references, C for characters, ! for extraordinary/enlightening stuff.

>>15251707
I see. Do you write notes for what the path of the book may go?

Another question. You know that tendency of doing something you just started doing quite frequently merely due to the fact that you just started doing it? think of it as the first time you wore a watch and couldn't stop looking at it every 2 minutes or so. Does that happen to you? that feeling of "this is not entirely necessary as I understand that word/I don't find that sentence that engaging, but gotta write it down just for the hell of it" I think I sometimes write shit that I reread afterwards and go "why did I find that the way I did that first time?"

>>15251484
What's your notekeeping system basedanon?
How do you extract utility from the books you read?

>>15251754
>extract utility from the books you read

>>15251406
It's not an isolated phenomena. I do the same thing in my own native language.

>>15251702
I do write things down while reading, but only parpahrases and summaries. Highlighting, underlining, cute little notes and squiggles don't aid in the comprehension of the book in any way.

>>15251772
What is this even supposed to mean? I guess that's so easy to be pseudo-ironic when you really, truly don't have an argument against it.
>hey, let's go lurk on my image-reaction folder to see what vague image I'll reply to my vague and sardonic argument.
Fuck off.

>>15251789
>What is this even supposed to mean? I guess that's so easy to be pseudo-ironic when you really, truly don't have an argument against it.
>>hey, let's go lurk on my image-reaction folder to see what vague image I'll reply to my vague and sardonic argument.
>Fuck off.

>>15251744
Not the person you're responding to but I more often than I'd like to admit come back to see stuff I highlighted and think either "why did I highlight this?" or "yeah this is interesting but not that much". I also have a tendency to highlight stuff just because it somehow adds to the lore of the universe the book is set in, and sometimes i end up highlighting a lot (e.g. there are some chapters on LotR which contain a lot about the Middle Earth lore that I feel like highlighting), so I've been messing around with different ways of highlighting whatever lore-related lines I think are interesting. At the end of the day, I think highighting stuff isn't worth it for me because I'm a rather slow reader and it slows me down even more (I also take notes, so if I'm reading a book in english, which is not my native language, and I'm feeling a bit autistic I'll go around highlighting every word I don't know or maybe even its meaning or its translation.

unironically as bad as doing this to a book
>BRO MUH PROPERTY RIGHTS MUH NAP

nobody cares that you have the right to do this, it's like putting ketchup on a steak
you're fucking ruining it

>>15251803
What's your take on that though. I'm also a a slow reader, but find the whole experience somewhat wholesome; to sit down and stare at a page for minutes until I know the closest thing of what the author wanted to say. I don't know, for me the whole i-can-read-nth-number-of-words-per-minute thing is a matter of preference, and I like to take my time and overall he the best of what I chose to read. Why do yoy think I not worth it?

>>15251831
Not for me. I like putting loads of ketchup in my stake, regardless if I'm eating at a restaurant or at home. I can't imagine the amount of everyday little stuff you marginalize thinking about the sheer paradigm that others find it not their cup of tea. What a waste.

>>15251736

>>15251744
>Do you write notes for what the path of the book may go?
Not that frequently. But maybe it's because plot isn't my #1 concern. I do all these predictions mentally.
>You know that tendency of doing something you just started doing quite frequently merely due to the fact that you just started doing it? think of it as the first time you wore a watch and couldn't stop looking at it every 2 minutes or so. Does that happen to you?
Sometimes but I mostly write things that I really like. If I go back to my notes I can tell the reason why I wrote something down, be it the imagery, the idea behind, the lyricism, the eloquence, etc.

>>15251835
I just don't think what I personally gain from highlighting is worth the amount of time I spend doing it. But, to be fair, highlighting or not doesn't make much difference when I can't sit and read for more than 20 minutes without being distracted with phone bullshit, had I got over that I don't think I would mind reading slowly.

>>15251892
Well, whether it be on notebook or on the same book, (as I unapologetically and conspicuously do) It's nice to see others POVs and inner methods on doing notes about reading material. I think I'll start doing something with initials as you do.

>>15251916
leave it in your bathroom as I do and search words you don't understand in a hard copy dictionary, see if it helps with the needs. It does for me

>>15251929
>Well, whether it be on notebook or on the same book, (as I unapologetically and conspicuously do) It's nice to see others POVs and inner methods on doing notes about reading material.
Yea, we all have our systems to suit our personal needs.
> I think I'll start doing something with initials as you do.
Nice to hear you liked it. Good luck, OP.

>>15251935
The thing is, I usually can't read more than maybe 40 minutes straight, then I go for a pause and take hours to go back. But thanks for your concerns, anon. Maybe I'm a bit sentimental now because it's morning already and I didn't sleep yet. I've been slowly but surely reading a bit more, this social distancing thing is making me organize my stuff better. Thanks again.

>>15252117
Well, go to bed, man. Rest a little, then find that book you have that you haven't finished and just do it. You'll feel better once you do it; rinse and repeat. Remember that not sleeping may cause depression. Also, perhaps, don't set your goal that high. Sleep, then read 4 pages maybe? See how that goes. Hope you feel better overall though

I just read the book, only thing I have to look up is translations if there is long passages in another language, I gave up trying to study books a few years ago, just read for enjoyment desu

>>15251501
Is this a troll? Do you really not know what the words "thither" and "loitering" mean? If you don't know, then how did you end up on /lit/?

>>15251406
>Reading a book
>Too self-important to pay attention to what the author has written
>Have to write your own book on top of the words that are written on the page
>Can't just look up a word in a dictionary without defacing a perfectly good book
>Can't deface a book without taking pictures of it
>Can't take pictures of defacing a book without posting them online for other people to see
How do I know that you're a woman?

>>15251406
Imagine ruining books

>>15251798
>[quote with no added comment]

>>15252277
Not OP, but underlining passages I like, or making comments is fine to me. For instance, writing "homer" beside a passage that Milton particularly draws influence from Homer, if he uses direct phrasing from him.
Annotating isn't a new degenerative thing, writers and readers have been doing it for centuries. Take Milton again, his folio of shakspere is full of his own annotations, and Melville was a notorious annotator.
Ancient manuscripts have annotations from scribes, as do personal copies.
almost everyone in history has recognised it's okay to annotate when you're not being autistic. It's peak hedonism and materialism to uphold a physical book to be untouchable in this regard, this rivals the classic misunderstanding of spirit and body, like how Muslims reverence the physical copies of the Qur'an not just the word of it.
You're religious fops with your holy items as your precious books, get fucked because you're too much of a coward to have your own thoughts and record them for time immemorial

>>15251406
Don't listen to the haters, OP. It's fine to annotate your books.

>>15252653
This guy is completely right. All famous writers / high achievers of any kind wrote ALL OVER their books. The important thing is to MAKE WHAT YOU WRITE WORTHY OF BEING WRITTEN. This applies even when it's "just" notes in books.

Personally I think the notes I write in books enrich them enormously. That's because I'n not some pathetic literary vandal. My notes have intelligence and learning and purpose.

Most of you haters, of course - YOUR notes would probably just be so much graffiti on a cathedral wall. You're right not to write anything.

>>15252653
Leaving the hedonism (as you call it) aside, I think that it's just down right lazy to find a word you don't understand and not search for it, or impractical when doing it and having to search it again if the writer repeats it since you already forgot it. A lot of you already mentioned that yes, you use a notebook for that and not scribble on the book itself, but for me using two separate things (1) makes it harder to relate, even when keeping track of pages and (2) disrupts the reading in and of itself.

What type of comments do you write?

>Personally I think the notes I write in books enrich them enormously. That's because I'n not some pathetic literary vandal. My notes have intelligence and learning and purpose.

What types of notes do you make to enrich books? I'm curious on what you actually write o them.

>>15251406
Oh god i remember how i signed my Silmarillion and added pentagram above it..... Why oh why....

>>15251406
>always pencil, always sharp, always slowly and deliberately drawn lines
>straight line down side of paragraphs/segments
>asterisk on end of line/ad hoc foot notes drawn to scale
>straight horizontal line on sub-sections, half in margin half over the text out to about 5 characters
>straight horizontal line fully in the margin for larger subsections, slightly longer
>key words for quick reference index top right
>marginalia, intertexual quotes for the top heading space; bottom for those pertaining to the current page only
>symbols, typically planetary for particular points of interest/thematic cross reference at a glance

>>15251484
Most people's personal writing script is infantile with thoughts to match. fuck that fucking soijack, especially the spam on /tv/[, dilate Everyone itt must develop an aesthetic, non print script. Penmanship is an art, and if you're doing it all the time, the endless practice should accrue to something both useful and pleasing to the eye.

>>15251777
Pen annotation is cringe. Should you die and the volume to change hands, the determination on their use value ought to be at the discretion of the next owner; if that person is kin, there's no danger of them erasing it or graphite smudging regardless.

>>15253773
Morgoth got your goat, kek

>>15253876
hmmmmm my thoughts are very ugly and chaotic it seems

>>15253408
I used Milton and Homer as an example before so here's this. It's not a thought that would matter much to write in a separate notebook, but I wrote it in the margin so I'll be remembered the next time I read

I follow pic related if it's a non-fiction book requiring dedicated study, only I don't write in the book but organise my notes on Microsoft Onenote.

>>15253445
I usually write notes to link things. So if Author A says something and I recall how Author B said something similar (or related) I might make a note to that effect.

A few examples from my Pensées (lower case is Pascal, capitals is me):

171. Misery. — The only thing which consoles us for our miseries is diversion, and yet this it the greatest of our miseries. For it is this which principally hinders us from reflecting upon ourselves, and which makes us insensibly ruin ourselves. Without this we should be in a state of weariness, and this weariness would spur us to seek a more solid means of escaping from it. But diversion amuses us, and leads us unconsciously to death.
- CF. 'BRAVE NEW WORLD'

353. I do not admire the excess of a virtue as of valour, except I see at the same time the excess of the opposite virtue, as in Epaminondas, who had the greatest valour and the greatest kindness. For otherwise it is not to rise, it is to fall. We do not display greatness by going to one extreme, but in touching both at once, and filling all the intervening space. But perhaps this is only a sudden movement of the soul from one to the other extreme, and in fact it is ever at one point only, as in the case of a firebrand. Be it so, but at least this indicates agility if not expanse of soul.
- IF BEETHOVEN WERE ALWAYS VEHEMENT WE WOULD NOT ESTEEM HIS VEHEMENCE SO MUCH
- CF. CHANDLER 'PLAYBACK'

382. When all is equally agitated, nothing appears to be agitated, as in a ship. When all tend to debauchery, none appears to do so. He who stops draws attention to the excess of others, like a fixed point.
CF. FATHER MAPPLE'S SERMON IN 'MOBY DICK': JONAH'S LANTERN HANGING UPRIGHT

465. The Stoics say, "Retire within yourselves; it is there you will find your rest." And that is not true.
Others say, "Go out of yourselves; seek happiness in amusement." And this is not true. Illness comes.
Happiness is neither without us nor within us. It is in God, both without us and within us.
- CF. DANTE - THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS ARE NOT MISERABLE BUT NEITHER ARE THEY ECSTATICALLY HAPPY

>>15254077
These are my notes for Euthyphro. Nothing too deep but that's because the dialogue isn't very dense.

>>15254074
More typically I underline or score the margin beside a passage I like, such as this

>>15254089

The Raymond Chandler quote in "Playback" goes like this:

>“How can such a hard man be so gentle? she asked wonderingly.
>If I wasn't hard, I wouldn't be alive. If I couldn't ever be gentle, I wouldn't deserve to be alive.”

Chandler of course received a good education. I bet he knew Pascal's Pensées.

I use a piece of paper as a book mark and use it to jot down characters and important events, especially useful in long books N.B. only note characters that appear on multiple pages, found this out the hard way for GR
For sections I like, I fold the bottom corner of the page, any enjoyable phrases or ideas that come to me while reading, I put in notes on my phone

>>15251406
I use post its and highlighter tape.