Thread 24731370

Is he right?

>>24731370 (OP)
>gut with highly performative “coffee” drink makes a performative social media post about how reading a specific book is performative
He would know, I suppose.

>>24731376
to be fair it was in response to an article on the subject

>performative
stopped reading right there

>>24731382
>waah men don’t read
>waaah men are reading it’s performative and fake

Glad I cut “news” out of my life. Fucking misery machine.

>>24731382
Niggas reading harry potter lmao

>>24731403
I think the whole description of a performative male reading is that they read mostly books associated with femininity or females i.e. feminist literature without so much as having a critical analysis of their own that doesn't entail 'patriarchy bad'

>>24731382
I would say at first as a kid my interest in lit was performative because doing well on English tests was the only time I recall anyone showing any sort of respect for me but as an adult I grew out of performative reading. I can’t imagine most people even knowing of a book like Gravity’s Rainbow but I am not exactly from lit central.

>>24731382
Thats fair

>>24731370 (OP)
As someone who has never read Pynchon, and has very little interest in reading Pynchon, what do people get out of reading Pynchon? It seems like the incomprehensibility of Joyce without any of his substantial value.

>>24731454
What substantial value do you gain from Joyce?

>>24731454
He reminds of Tolkien in that his use of language is unparalleled and so is his ability to craft an extensive tale filled with a motley cast of characters yet hold your attention for hundreds of pages.

>>24731454
He has plenty of novels that are less weird and more approachable than GR. I like him for the humor and fun with history, physics, and mathematics. Some great prose, and just interesting ways of applying ideas from math/physics/history in more poetic ways.

Also goofball musical numbers.

>>24731421
I started reading independently of the curriculum in 11th grade because I thought it would get me laid.
>>24731454
Like a bunch of historical cartoons. It's fun.

>>24731454
>I've never read Pynchon
>gives a blanket statement on what he writes
Huh?

>>24731370 (OP)
Only thing I read in public

>>24731382
I dont like it when people see me. Id like to be invisible.

>>24731502
Simpsons already pointed that out like 30 years ago.

>>24731370 (OP)
I wish more people knew about it, but if you aren't already a fan chances are it looks like any other big book

>>24731454
It's like a collection of shitposts from the 60s

>>24731496
It is quite good, you should actually read it instead of using it to larp as an edgy 14 year old.

>>24731419
Why can't women be satisfied with anything?

>>24731661
They never stop bitching

>>24731661
Many women are lead to believe that they must live a life that coincides with the idea fed to them and in their head. And mind you this isn't something done by men or 'corporations' sometimes too, its done by other women TO women.
Most of this ideas are fed through social media and shows.
These (performative) men are just playing the game that women put out, and they're playing it so good that others are starting to notice it. Before they were called soft boys, before that fuck boys, and many more before that. And they keep falling for it too. I can give you 3 years tops when we'll see another category of men they'll bitch about.

>>24731454
>As someone who has never read Pynchon, and has very little interest in reading Pynchon

Suck & Fuck version of Slaughterhouse 5 by a SIGINT spook. And a mid rehash of Sotweed Factor. Mostly homunculus prosody. And deliberately padded typeset so one can go LOOK MA A BIG HECKIN BRICK. So continue and do not be bamboozled by performative non-canon 'canon' FOMO (the other half is consistently eye catching Homos' Gravity cover art in new editions).

>>24731370 (OP)
>Women projecting their own "performative" habits onto men. There's just no way a guy would read GR for fun, right?
To be fair most videos I see mocking these "performative men" are by pick-me guys that are ironically performing for women by doing so.

>>24731668
What's the joke here

>>24731370 (OP)
Infinite Jest slander!

>>24731861
>burger
>martini
Bonding your sister.

>>24731661
That anon's description seems like a fairly justified complaint though. If we made the situation less gendered, it would be like someone who constantly reads about moral philosophy totally lacking in any kind of moral introspection.

>>24731454
>It seems like the incomprehensibility of Joyce
the incomprehensibility is a meme. It's just culturally dated and zoom zooms are only familiar with algorithms and soijaks.

>>24731668
Kikes are the most vile people in the world

>>24731370 (OP)
Yes. Bonus points if you read it in public.

>>24731668
egg and bacon sandwich, greek yogurt and a martini? that's a hell of a way to start the day.

who doesn't drink when they fly? it's like taking the bus.

>>24732571
pynchon is trash, though, and no matter how flawed the reasoning behind the conclusion, they're right to encourage you not to read him.

>>24732575
Performative lowercase typing zoomer filtered by literature

>>24731403
I bought a few margaret atwood books at a local used bookstore because they were recommended to me by /lit/ at the time (early 2010s). The cashier who was in her early 20's and chewing bubble gum looked at me and said "she's not gonna sleep with you". She then said "that's gonna be $18.49 (yes I have a good memory)" as the gum popped. im still upset over it

>>24732663
I hope that bitch got cervical cancer

>>24732685
...we're married

>>24732701
So you get to domestically abuse her over the incident

I'm on page 400 of Gravity's Rainbow and it's complete torture. I can't stand his retarded obsession with dirty showtunes. Give me Hemingway or Fitzgerald any day.

>>24732777
I’m 50 pages in and feel the same. I want to finish it but enjoyment of reading it definitely oscillates constantly. If I just do 9 pages a day I’ll be done in two months.

>>24731370 (OP)
Being concerned about whether something is performative is in itself performative. If you fear becoming a cliché even if it is authentically you then you are just Neal from Good old Neon.. and probably should follow his lead.

>>24731661
Figure that one out and you would be the greatest philosopher who ever lived.

>>24732794
At this point I feel like I'm in too deep to stop. I'm trying to read 20/25 pages a day. Once I read 20ish pages I pause and go to read something else.

>>24732794
>9 pages a day
The absolute state of /lit/ posters

>>24731403
It’s literally just zoomers with those gay mustaches and some even gayer book that they saw on tiktok or Reddit or wherever zoomers get their identity.

>>24731457
Well Joyce was conceptually thought provoking and his prose is so stylized I can't help but imagine every life he inspired.

>>24733013
That's fine for gravitys rainbow if you're also researching on the side. Elite readers read 3-5 books at a time anyway.

>>24731457
There is still a 19th century realist substratum behind everything Joyce wrote. His characters are real, his plots are real, and I don't get that sense from Pynchon.

>>24733503
Why do the characters have to be realistic in order for the novel to be substantial? Pynchon uses two dimensional characters to illustrate and criticize the systems and hierarchies that make up our world, he was never going for realism.

>>24732653
>lowercase posters slowly turning into a new boogeyman

>>24731382
Reading in public is okay unless the space is crowded but if you read just to get pussy you deserve to be ridiculed.

>>24731419
Cultural articles are made up trash. They usually have nothing to talk about and scrap bottom of the barrel social media.

>>24731370 (OP)
So what, I can't read in public without it being "performative"? And since I'm not fat or ugly, doubly so? Guess I should just stick to mindlessly scrolling like them.

These social media addicted mongrels should just be fucking lobothomized already.

>>24731454
Pynchon isn’t incomprehensible at all. Gravity’s Rainbow is a pretty challenging read but “incomprehensible” is really pushing it. Everything else (from what I’ve read, haven’t gotten to Mason & Dixon yet) isn’t even particularly difficult. There are a lot of characters and sometimes weird stuff happens but if you have a high school education you can probably get the gist of it.

>>24735904
you are fat and ugly

you can't read in public people will mock you for it.

>>24731370 (OP)
That coffee looks disgusting.

>>24736489
Looks like the foam ratio was off and the barista put in too much cinnamon.

>>24736491
Not even too much cinnamon, they added cinnamon like they didn't fucking care where it went.
And the "foam" that looks like a singleton jizz-off.
I would literally walk out of that coffee place without paying, telling them that they serve garbage. I don't care if I get banned, that shit is fucking nasty.

And yes, I would take a fucking picture of it before I did all of this just so I could show it to the police if the coffee shop was dumb enough to call them.

>>24733514
>Why do the characters have to be realistic in order for the novel to be substantial?
It doesn't, but I certainly EPECT it to be substantial than 99% of postmodern literature and your description of Pynchon really makes me suspect of there being anything substantial, anything beyond mental masturbation, in his works. If the overall outcome of his works is a critique, then art has become subservient to a message, to an opinion, that is utterly irrelevant as far as art is concerned.

>>24732575
>Lake and Deuce were married over on the other side of the mountains in a prairie church whose steeple was visible for miles, at first nearly the color of the gray sky in which it figured as little more than a geometric episode, till at closer range the straight lines began to break up, soon slipping every which way, like lines of a face seen too close, haggard from the assaults of more winters than anybody still living in the area remembered the full count of, weathered beyond sorrowful, smelling like generations of mummified rodents, built of Engelmann spruce and receptive to sound as the inside of a parlor piano. Though scarcely any music ever came this way, the stray mouth-harpist or whistling drifter who did pass through the crooked doors found himself elevated into more grace than the acoustics of his way would have granted him so far.

>>24731454
People get shit out reading Cujo. However for Pynchon I think is a sort of enjoy the ride kind of experience. If you are looking to just get at the core of what is conveyed you are probably not going to enjoy his works all that much. But if you can get enjoyment out of just going on a journey, observe questions arise without a guarantee for answers. Then he's alright.

His bad reputation really is undeserved and more so a critique of the people who shout about his work rather than the actual books. He's quite absurd, he weaves in scientific jargon, he's esoteric... but hey if he didn't get praise from pseuds larping as intellectuals I bet he'd be seen as just a pretty good eccentric author.

>>24737040
>If you are looking to just get at the core of what is conveyed you are probably not going to enjoy his works all that much
Most people don't have to work at being stupid.

>>24737042
I don't really understand your point. But hey maybe I am just stupid :-)

>>24737047
Your advice was to not even try.

>>24733013
ESL here, currently reading Gravity's Rainbow in English and I believe it's the most ardous book I've ever read. currently on the second chapter (the casino, the octopus) and the story seems to be picking up pace, but some of the earlier, more vague passages really flow like molasses and the prose isn't easy. I read V and TCOL49 before and they were somewhat challenging, but GR is on a whole different level. the thing about Pynchon is that, although he can be frustrating at times, when he's good he's really fucking good. very idiosyncratic too, which I appreciate.

MAN DOES THING
IS OUR DEMOCRACY UNDER ATTACK?

>>24737054
Well that's one way of viewing it. But I'll take the crying of lot 49 as an example. It is a quite a pointless book ultimately from a narrative point of view. Nothing really is resolved by the end. The protagonist gets further and further into uncovering a conspiracy but the reader is at the end of it left with no real answers.

However the mystery you are being drawn into throughout the book is quite capitvating. So that is more so what I am getting at. Leaving things open can be seen as lazy but it also gives the reader the green light to expand upon the story with their own imagination. Not everything has to be spelled out for you or resolved you know. I have read many poems that move me but where the intent of the author remains a mystery to me. A fully mapped out world is amazing to the craven autist and hell for the daring explorer.

>>24737079
You are on the verge of giving up being a plotfag, just need to put in a little effort.

>>24731370 (OP)
will reading Lolita performatively in public help me get a hot gf?

>>24731668
Women LOVE the panopticon

>>24737697
I hate the panopticon

What kind of performative male reads Anathem on the train?

>>24731403
>misery machine
keyed
>>24731370 (OP)
I don't know but it's Jonathan Blow's favorite book and many people regard him as pretentious so it seems to track.

>>24731631
no it is not
>>24731496
trash. reading this inane book will only make you worse off in every way

>>24737047
based

i liked inherent vice and lot 49, but read gr a few years before both of them and i think i got filtered by it a bit
the songs were fun

>>24737947
I dunno, some nerd. Speaking of, that was a pretty decent sci-fi.

>>24735904
if you're not fat or ugly you've never read a book

Can't be a performative reader if you live in genuine social isolation on the edge of the woods and no one even sees you let alone sees you reading books. I am okay with this.

>>24738081
You just proved yourself wrong.

>>24738081
>pulling the ultimate performance isn't a performance
All the world's a stage.

>>24738081
I know you are out there, at the edge of the woods, thinking you are so cool reading in isolation. Faggot.

The best use of ebooks is to read them in public and avoid all this performative and self awareness bullshit.

>but if you are genuinely reading, why do you care about what others think

If you have more than 110 iq, it's impossible not to be aware of how you look while reading and who may be seeing you, and it distracts you from the actual book.

>>24738148
I still see you holding your gay little ereader anon, only audiobooks can save you from looking like a pussy whipped bitch

>>24738152
I have Amazon Kindle in my phone. The format is uncomfortable but less uncomfortable than been seen reading.

>but you don't retain anything that way

I take notes of everything if it's philosophy, so that's not a problem. I'd never read good literature that way, it completely crushes aesthetics. I remember reading Aristotle's Topics (one of his most boring books) in the bus while I hoped that no moors sat next to me, as I live in Europe.

>>24738148
>If you have more than 110 iq, it's impossible not to be aware of how you look while reading and who may be seeing you, and it distracts you from the actual book.
That is not a valid IQ test.

>>24738148
I read off my phone for free all the time. That way I can decide if I want to initiate conversation.

>>24731454
Pynchons my fav writer for sure because my fav thing in books is goofs, gags, jokes and rambunctious behavior, and his books are full to the brim of it. Every novel is like one of those novelty snake cans, you open the book & POP you get a face fulla snakes and you fall back cackling. The mad mind, the crack genius, to do it! and then you think hmmm whats he gonna do next, this trickster, and you pick the book back up and BZZZZZZZZZZ you get a shock and Hahahahahah you've been pranked again by the old pynchmeister, that card. "Did that Pynch?" he says, laughing yukyukyukyuk. Watch him as he shoves a pair of plastic buck teeth right up into his mouth and displays em for you- left, right, center- "you like dese? Do i look handsome???" Pulls out a mirror. "Ah!" Hand to naughty mouth. And you're on your ass again laughing as he snaps his suspenders, exits stage right, and appears again hauling a huge golden gong.

Why is there now a wide-ranging almost smear campaign against people reading? Is it because the ideas cached in the canon are dangerous in some way?

>>24738277
It is because retards who don't read larp as readers and let everyone know they are better than everyone else because they larp. Hence the state of /lit/.

>>24738277
My theory is there is a rising movement to minimize internet time. i think enough people are waking up from two decades of staring at pixels and want real experiences in their lives. And, for people raised on the screen, they want to live in a different world without chronic screen usage.

Now, what would happen to the tech industry if there was a 20-30% reduction in internet usage. Lots of lost revenue and information harvesting. So, my theory is that interested parties are very interested in mocking any non-internet activity.

Get a book from the library (for free) and engage in an activity that doesnt monetize attention and time? And helps develop deep thinking, focus, and concentration? No way!

>>24732663
Joke's on her. Margaret Atwood really did sleep with you.

>>24738299
Ties into the ongoing tech oligarchy so I'd believe it. Always follow the money, right?

I swear, I've seen so much emphasis recently on trying to shame and prevent quoteunquote intellectualism, we gotta put books on the pedestal culturally speaking. Music specifically has had poisonous messages sown through it in the last few decades.

>>24738315
Yah, like, i know it sounds silly but it makes sense. The more people use the internet, the more money people make. Things that threaten that are bad. Imagine what would happen to the tech companies if people went screen minimalist. Everyone has some spiritual awakening or something. Internet for banking? Great. Banking in person sucked. Google maps? Fantastic. Email? Wicked. But imagine if people stopped watching youtube and streaming services. Stopped using social media and, instead, made an effort to see people in person, or get along with the people around them. Imagine if peoples screen usage fell by 80-90%. What would happen to the tech companies? Probably their biggest fear.

And I agree about putting books on the pedestal, but the way of shaming people for reading is unfortunately very effective. Shame, really. But there does need to be some movement away from screen and back to real life. But I would not be surprised if, whenever a non-tech non-revenue generating hobby becomes popular, there would be articles and online movements shaming it.

>>24738350
Economy is a force of nature at this point, and when attention is drawn elsewhere then you have to suffer the death throes of the affluent, subtle as they may be etc.

Shame is the best tactic of economic war yeah, people are still too tapped into the neoliberalist style intellectual/aesthetic policing which shitty articles like OP are able to exploit, and love being able to piggyback off a pre-established caricature of 'performative male' so they can tear down the people around them. I say fuck em, bring back literature. I'm personally seeing momentum with people stepping away from technology and the slow emergence of open mics and book-clubs again, I think we should try to cultivate it.