/lit/ - Literature

You might want to try reading fiction that painfully obviously tries to make a point. I'm thinking of stuff like 1984 or Atlas Shrugged, although there's a million of these works. Some works are pretty damn subtle, others have a heavy-handed theme that's impossible to miss. When you already know that theme, you can track it throughout the work, find out how it's used and then maybe find similarities to fiction with a different theme.

>>8264

I knew I would have to get to Rand eventually since philosophy is essentially my main passion. I get her basic premises already though. I will try 1984 at one point. Any other suggestions?

BTW The works I tried reading are Kafka's. I'll probably keep trying because although I can't discern any sort of deep meaning from them, I enjoy his characters in-themselves.

>>8266

>I knew I would have to get to Rand eventually since philosophy is essentially my main passion. I get her basic premises already though. I will try 1984 at one point.

Pro-tip, if you want to get an in-depth view of Rands philosophy, read The Virtue of Selfishness. It's a lot more concise than Atlas Shrugged. And I do mean "a lot". Atlas Shrugged still has its merits, but it's five times the length of most novels so I would never classify it as required reading.

>Any other suggestions?

You might want to give Peter Watts a try. It's extremely hard Asimovian polemics dealing with questions of free will and consciousness.

>BTW The works I tried reading are Kafka's.

Yeah, no wonder you can't discern meaning from it. Kafka is hard to sift through, which is pretty damn unsurprising when you consider that he never wanted his stuff published.

Wonderful you can enjoy his works, though. More people should read classical literature for the fun of it, instead of to be pretentious dicks about it.

>>8259

there are plenty of reasons for reading fiction.

one of them, is like >>8264 said, that some try to make a point, like brand new world.

another is that if you are interested in history, reading books from the time and place you are interested in, helps you get a feel of the period in question.

you'll soon find out that there is something about art mediums of a certain period that inevitably have much in common.

you'd be surprised how much baroque architecture is similar to baroque music and baroque literature.

some historical novels are incredibly well researched like the bethroted by manzoni or les miserables by hugo. you might like them especially for their non fiction angle.

and, in the end, some authors can really tell you something about human nature.

and you would be surprised how many people of note had been inspired by works of fiction and fictional characters.

but in the end when in comes to reading, one has to read what really interests him.

i'm not trying to sell you anything here…

Stop thinking about what's true and enjoy the lies being told.