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/lit/ - Literature

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Anonymous Sun May 21 22:23:23 2023 No.22059874 [Reply] [Original]

What book has done the most to genuinely change you or alter your perspective in life?

Anonymous Mon May 22 01:45:30 2023 No.22060644
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>>22059874
VALIS, I read this right around the time my full power was being actualized via the manifestation of my schizophrenia allowing me to truly unlock my burning inner strength by swimming through unending waves of sheer paranoia and terror.

>>	Anonymous Mon May 22 02:55:43 2023 No.22060934 Quite sincerely the Tao te Ching.

>>	Anonymous Mon May 22 02:57:18 2023 No.22060942 >>22059874 What is Art by Tolstoy made me quit art and put me in the worst depression I've ever had

>>	Anonymous Mon May 22 02:58:26 2023 No.22060945 >>22059874 Straw Dogs by John Gray

>>	Anonymous Mon May 22 02:58:36 2023 No.22060947 File: 27 KB, 239x239, 51E3B1DC-0A13-4EE9-B957-F0CAB81AE4EC.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] jw literature and the jw bible

>>	Anonymous Mon May 22 02:59:20 2023 No.22060953 The Brothers Karamazov

>>	Anonymous Mon May 22 05:00:35 2023 No.22061270 >>22059874 Nietzsche helped me break out from my societally induced moral prison. Even though I disagree with him a lot, reading his books taught me that it's ok to think freely

Anonymous Mon May 22 05:09:04 2023 No.22061293
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The Last Messiah.
I've seen people here claim that it is impossible to be a "true nihilist". I'm not sure if it's true or not, but this lil' book has brought me as close as humanly possible to that state.

>>	Anonymous Mon May 22 15:56:29 2023 No.22062851 >>22059874 Become what you are by Alan Watts

Anonymous Mon May 22 16:30:31 2023 No.22062967

>>22059874
>What book has done the most to genuinely change you or alter your perspective in life?
I'm still waiting to find that book. Not too long ago I started reading one book containing practical advice along with the book that is just (historical) information.

Anonymous Mon May 22 16:35:52 2023 No.22062981
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>>22062967
Actually reading about ufology convinced me that aliens are not rare at all in the universe and that they have been in contact with earth and influencing us since forever but I found this before even becoming a reader of books. I found it mostly by reading online articles.
If anyone is interested, Allen Hynek is a great starting point. His two scientific books are a better introduction than any book that are introductory to any subject. I can't recommend them enough. There are so many amazing ufology books, picrel is another example.

>>	Anonymous Mon May 22 16:40:35 2023 No.22062998 >>22062981 Meds. Shame on you for having a UFO book being the biggest catalyst for change in your life

Anonymous Mon May 22 16:54:11 2023 No.22063041
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Anna Karenina, Brideshead Revisited, Diary of a Country Priest, Brothers Karamazov, and Stoner all permanently changed me on a fundamental level. I still think about these five stories regularly.

In a second tier of books that blew me away and influenced me, but in an aesthetic sense, discovering how the English language could be used in ways I hadn't before realised, I would place Portrait of the Artist, Lolita, Mrs Dalloway/Lighthouse, and Moby Dick. When I first read Lolita at like 19 I actually ran up and down the stairs shaking a little because I was so blown away by the language, it was the first book I'd read after lots of stodgy older Russian stuff which is great for life's truths but not so much for sheer aesthetic pleasure. I took no moral lessons or real introspection from Lolita, but just bathed in the wordplay. It was almost hedonistic, the literary equivalent of a no-strings-attached fuck with a stranger, full of lust, full of pleasure, enjoying it for what it was then letting it go. The 5 books I listed first are more like marriages, I'll go back and re-read them throughout the rest of my life, whereas I don't have much desire to go through Lolita again.

>>	Anonymous Mon May 22 17:14:18 2023 No.22063098 >>22062998 Go back to redd.t, normie cuck.

>>	Anonymous Mon May 22 17:37:19 2023 No.22063185 >>22060644 > Philip K. Penis

>>	Anonymous Mon May 22 17:41:01 2023 No.22063195 >>22060942 Wasn't this during his arc of being a totally miserable bastard? I would ignore his writings at this point

>>	Anonymous Mon May 22 17:44:19 2023 No.22063204 >>22063185 >Phallus K. Penis

>>	Anonymous Mon May 22 17:47:35 2023 No.22063216 >>22063204 >Phallus Kock Dick

>>	Anonymous Mon May 22 17:53:38 2023 No.22063247 >>22063216 >Phallus Kock Penis

Anonymous Mon May 22 17:54:03 2023 No.22063250
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>>22059874
In Search of Lost Time, no doubt about it. Proust writes in the final volume, or rather his narrator as he sets out to finally begin his work (which is to write the novel you're just about to finish), that it would be inaccurate to say he thought of those who'd read his book as "his" readers, but rather that they would be readers of their own selves; that his book would merely be a magnifying glass which he'd furnish them with, giving them the means to do so. What he's saying is not new to the reader, of course, as they would by that point already know what he was up to; they (ie, me) would already have started reading themselves with the help of his magnifying glass.

>>	Anonymous Mon May 22 17:59:58 2023 No.22063276 >>22060953 amazing but basic answer

>>	Anonymous Mon May 22 18:03:50 2023 No.22063289 >>22063250 What kind of magnifying glass? A magnifying glass for what?

>>	Anonymous Mon May 22 18:06:12 2023 No.22063294 >>22059874 The first 30 pages of Thus Spake Zarathustra. Felt so much better than I had the previous couple years that I just stopped reading it in case it changed up on me. Been six months still feel great.

>>	Anonymous Mon May 22 18:10:53 2023 No.22063309 >>22063289 >magnifying glass for what? So a tale may be written by the readers themselves on themselves on themselves. An autobiography penned in refracted sunlight on parchment of living flesh.

>>	Anonymous Mon May 22 18:23:59 2023 No.22063366 >>22059874 Plato's Republic

>>	Anonymous Mon May 22 19:25:46 2023 No.22063582 >>22059874 A man without qualities raised made me an adult.

>>	Anonymous Mon May 22 19:27:16 2023 No.22063584 >>22059874 Epictetus

>>	Anonymous Mon May 22 19:35:36 2023 No.22063610 >>22063250 I sadly, see a lot of myself in the petty, vain, self-conscious family members of his and the Verdurins. Even though, I have not finished it yet it has left a mark on me already.

>>	Anonymous Mon May 22 19:55:08 2023 No.22063675 >>22059874 Beyond Freedom & Dignity taught me to stay away from Behaviorism

>>	Anonymous Mon May 22 20:06:41 2023 No.22063713 >>22063582 That's Musil right? I've been meaning to read it, is it worth it?

>>	Anonymous Mon May 22 22:21:11 2023 No.22064223 1984

>>	Anonymous Mon May 22 22:48:38 2023 No.22064312 >>22059874 Ecclesiastes

>>	Anonymous Mon May 22 23:03:48 2023 No.22064353 >>22059874 Tao Te Ching or Chuang Tzu

>>	Anonymous Mon May 22 23:04:56 2023 No.22064356 >>22059874 I only read books which reinforce what I already believe

>>	Anonymous Mon May 22 23:11:49 2023 No.22064383 >>22064356 Based.

Anonymous Mon May 22 23:37:53 2023 No.22064473
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>>22059874
Toss up. Each irrevocably changed how I look at the world and books.
>Paradise Lost
My controversial opinion of PL is that you can essentially skip the classics if you thoroughly study the parts which pertain to Milton's development of Satan as a classic hero. No need for the whole canon, just go where Milton points you.
>Just Above My Head
Baldwin's masterpiece. Every one of his works leads to this one book. The best of Sonny's Blues, Go Tell it on the Mountain, and Giovanni's Room are all present. Heartbreaking meditation on the uncrossable chasm that will always lie between you and others, no matter how deeply you love them.
>Four Quartets
The greatest poem of the moderns. Unbeatable meditation on time. Also mandatory reading for improving one's understanding of imagery in writing, IMO.
>Finnegans Wake
It asks too much of you and you'll never understand it. It released me from so many of my hangups in "understanding" literature, which was a disease I'd ironically picked up from Dubliners.

>>	Anonymous Mon May 22 23:38:56 2023 No.22064478 >>22059874 Decameron, and Gargantuan and Pantagruel

>>	Anonymous Mon May 22 23:40:15 2023 No.22064482 >>22063195 But he's litreally me. I agree with everything he says. It's just true, all of it. You can't forget the truth once it's laid out before your eyes.

>>	Anonymous Tue May 23 02:29:50 2023 No.22064974 File: 128 KB, 1044x1360, ozzy.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>22059874 >pic related completely misunderstood. way deeper than "LE EBIN DOOM GUY !1111!!" it is epic poetry

>>	Anonymous Tue May 23 02:38:24 2023 No.22064992 >>22064974 I took away individualism from it in the same vein as Emerson or Nietzsche, aka masses are bad. It is a very ambitious book. Unfortunately it’s been relegated to chudcel lit when it’s way more than that

>>	Anonymous Tue May 23 02:39:14 2023 No.22064993 >>22060934 Came here to post this

>>	Anonymous Tue May 23 06:08:45 2023 No.22065465 >>22063247 >Philadelphia Kike Penis And it was a good thread too.

>>	Anonymous Tue May 23 06:33:16 2023 No.22065526 >>22064992 I'd wager Revolt Of The Masses is more of a "masses are bad" book than that.

>>	Anonymous Tue May 23 06:38:11 2023 No.22065535 >>22063276 amazing but basic answer

>>	Anonymous Tue May 23 07:04:33 2023 No.22065604 >>22059874 I wouldn’t say it “altered” my views on life but it has resonated with me the most. A Confession by Tolstoy. I think about the words he wrote in that book constantly. Death can happen at any moment after all.

>>	Anonymous Tue May 23 07:16:17 2023 No.22065624 File: 61 KB, 300x400, 300.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>22059874 unironically pic related

>>	Anonymous Tue May 23 10:50:31 2023 No.22065999 File: 303 KB, 1400x2058, Obama.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>22059874

>>	Anonymous Tue May 23 11:12:53 2023 No.22066031 Some early Socratic dialogue, don't remember which one it was. I disagree with Plato's forms btw.

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