Literature that changed your life?

The Second Sex by Simone De Beauvoir......my
intro to feminism!

Hi, Ionesco. They never married, you know - nor do I think de Beauvoir married anyone else.

Why do you dislike Jean-Paul? And like de Beauvoir?

Oh - loved your Rhinoceros, by the way.



Can you tell us more about Lautréamont?

I'd have to go with 1984. That book really really bchanged my outlook on life. It's amazing. So did farenheit 451, but not as much.

No book has ever truly changed my life; though, by contrast, I've never engaged a piece of literature that hasn't nurtured the substance of my psychological terrain in some way, even if I disliked it.

I think it's difficult for anybody's life to be changed by a book. The parameters of our lives are fairly regiment, all things considered, and inspiration -- at least for me -- tends to ultimately prove little more than a brief, if pretty, firework. It's more the way the ashes fall and settle that define the underlying landscape, ultimately. I mean, sure, Netochka Nezvanova or The Death of Ivan Ilyich can move me to tears and rattle up my whole day, maybe even week; but in the end, I'm pretty much doing the same **** afterwards that I was before. Influences initially perceived to be positive may become negative once contextualized by ensuing pursuits, and vice versa.

De Sade's Juliette supplemented by Georges Bataille's Story of the Eye probably together represent the closest literature came to altering me into something other than what I was going in. Most other books simply helped chart out certain areas of self-understanding, provided a roundabout education regarding common philosophical constructs, supplied second-hand referential information about certain eras of history or culture, and/or just managed to evoke a really great story, on their own entirely fictional and dramatic terms.

On a personal level, I think I probably gleaned the most from Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground, while Kafka's The Metamorphosis was most significant in terms of introducing me to the potential of literature in general. Cormac McCarthy's work -- specifically Child of God, The Orchard Keeper, Outer Dark, and Blood Meridian -- had the biggest impersonal impact on me, giving more shape to my expectations regarding literary craft.

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I would have to say Artemis Fowl. It made me look at things in a new perspective!

Can you speak more of positives that became negative?

ronrocks92 wrote:

I would have to say Artemis Fowl. It made me look at things in a new perspective!

Hi Ronrocks.

What about Artemis Fowl? What new perspective?

Just dropping by to tell you how much i enjoy your thread, Our Dear Wabbit, Ozzian lapine that you be . . .

I understand how a comparison of points of view in a work of fiction can change one's personal outlook, as Ronrocks refers to in that post. In Golding's Inheritors, there is a scene in which one more or less adult member of the band central to the story (usually considered by literary critics to be Neanderthalis about to have a disasterous encounter with Cro Magnon--but i don't know if Golding has ever said as much), is sitting on a ledge above the band, and speaks to one member of the band. He is puzzled at getting no response. Then he gestures at several members, and getting no response, falls to cogitating. Then he has "an epiphany" in realizing that he can see these people who are virtually a part of himself, but that they are unaware of his existence.

Reading the passage, which has always stuck with me more than any other passage of the book, set me to consider a theme which has never left, which is to wonder about and attempt to discover the process by which "knowledge" comes to people. To my mind, an "intuitive flash" is simply an honest way of describing things which happen in our brains of which we are unaware. The pieces fall in place, so to speak, and at some point we stumble over the mosaic and see it for what it is.

Inheritors is a difficult book to read--it must have been a monumental task to have written--but it is rewarding for the very exercise of stepping out of your perceptions to attempt to understand the perceptions of others.

dlowan wrote:

Can you speak more of positives that became negative?

It?s difficult to provide specific examples; part of my point is that it?s all too relative and abstract to make those kinds of judgement calls on. Mostly it?s a matter of cycling through vantage points. If you look at a building from the inside, then look at it from the outside, then look at a blueprint or floor plan, the object of your attention is the same in each instance, but what you?re seeing in each is completely different. None of the vantage points are invalid; and how useful or informative the vantage point might be depends on what you?re looking for, and why.

To me, a subject like, say, morality ? metaphysically speaking ? is entirely nonsensical when taken beyond the purely pragmatic. Even a pragmatic discussion of the subject will be rife with baseless assumptions, but at least the substance of the discussion can roughly orient itself around (and begin to adhere itself to) a plan of action in regards to a specific set of circumstances ? and in this sense, ?human purpose? can be manufactured out of thin air. Which is kind of neat, if you can come to terms with the ?thin air? part ? the underlying emptiness ? and structure your psychology into circuits that remain unthreatened by that vacuum.


K.

dlowan wrote:

ronrocks92 wrote:

I would have to say Artemis Fowl. It made me look at things in a new perspective!

Hi Ronrocks.

What about Artemis Fowl? What new perspective?

I would say the whole mystery about Artemis Fowl(From the crimes he commits, to the characters he meets) is exciting! The perspective of how his butler looks at things, totally differs from Artemis's view of things(that should answer your question of how I looked at things in a new perspective.)!

Do you think literature helped you become aware of the underlying vacuum, or shaped your circuits?

Small Gods. I can't really think of exactly how now But I will post here if I do.

dlowan wrote:

Do you think literature helped you become aware of the underlying vacuum, or shaped your circuits?

Indirectly, it probably nurtured my sense of it -- shaped the circuits to some degree, maybe, but also gave dimension to my sense of them as "mere" circuits. I don?t know that it made me become aware of the underlying vacuum, in and of itself. Tough to say. What do you think about it, for your own part? I?d probably say I began seeking out certain kinds of literature because of my perception that that literature dealt with issues relating to a particular sense of and suspicion about reality that was already pregnant in me. (Fuel for the engine, as opposed to the engine itself, if you will.) More interestingly, one wonders where that initial sense might come from. Am I just a malcontent? Social upbringing? Noble affinity for the truth? Willfully blind to the obvious reality of a loving Judeo-Christian God because there?s Evil in my heart? Who knows. The more socially and emotionally isolated you are ?- can we argue this enhances or detracts from your capacity to accurately perceive reality? Many would argue ?detracts,? but it seems to me that swimming in a river isn?t necessarily the way to best perceive how a river operates.

Surely, everyone is subject to a certain amount of cultural brainwashing. The human mind has to work within the context and parameters it?s given ? so I?m prone to assume there a lot it can?t ?see? at all, and a lot it can only see through the unique refractions of its own specific and conditioned intellectual lens.