11-06-2017 | #161 | |||||||||||
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Re: (Why) Have we stopped reading fiction ?
I just watched that one. As much as I like the idea of being some sort of reading athlete I'm not touching anything that might make me sick, I'll stick to regular food. Unfortunately I loathe healthy food. My sleeping pattern has been awful since last December.
His quote about there being only 3 good reading hours in a day did interest me, because ideally I'd be reading for a few more. | |||||||||||
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11-06-2017 | #162 | |||||||||||
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Re: (Why) Have we stopped reading fiction ?
Maybe this is the age where you've to manage your pleasure like you manage your work, but I was irked by his use of such words as "optimize" , "biohack" and "streamline". His 6 tips:
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"Tell me how you want to die, and I'll tell you who you are. In other words, how do you fill out an empty life? With women, books, or worldly ambitions? No matter what you do, the starting point is boredom, and the end self-destruction. The emblem of our fate: the sky teeming with worms. Baudelaire taught me that life is the ecstasy of worms in the sun, and happiness the dance of worms."
---Tears and Saints, E. M. Cioran
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11-06-2017 | #163 | |||||||||||
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Re: (Why) Have we stopped reading fiction ?
Yes, I agree. I generally read as an alternative to such things. Not to finding time (and I think strategies can be helpful when you are struggling to find time to read), but I'm not interested in biohacks (I've rather gone off gore as I've got older) and the language of optimisation can be far too close to time and motion studies and ideas of employee productivity. | |||||||||||
“Absolutely candid, carefree, but straightforward speech becomes possible for the first time when one speaks of the highest." - Friedrich Schlegel
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11-06-2017 | #164 | |||||||||||
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Re: (Why) Have we stopped reading fiction ?
I've discovered that reading a book calms my anxiety, at least to some extent, whereas web-surfing does not. The book must be rich enough to engage my attention--and difficult, challenging books actually help rather than hinder this calming effect! Perhaps reading one thing (as opposed to hyperactively clicking through many things), simply distracts me from my own anxious thoughts and enables me to relax. But I'm inclined to see more in it. Maybe Schopenhauer was right: aesthetic contemplation suspends the will and the suffering associated with the will. I imagine that Bloom, Harold would dismiss this as an "idealism," and, following Nietzsche, assert the "agon" of great art (the ancient Greek tragedians vying with each other, etc.). But my own aesthetic experiences tend to be more Schopenhauerian (leaving aside agitation caused by some rock music, etc.). Even in Zapffe's reductive terms, reading a good book is more than distraction--probably distraction, sublimation, and anchoring all at once; and, in my opinion, sublimation and anchoring involve some values that can't always be easily dismissed or denigrated.
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08-02-2019 | #165 | |||||||||||
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Re: (Why) Have we stopped reading fiction ?
Was going to quote this in the recent thread about the Grey Dog Tales post...
Thoughts on being a writer on Greydogtales - THE NIGHTMARE NETWORK ...but I thought I might as well just update this thread. I'm kind of optimistic about this. I was hearing recently about India (apparently one of the greatest countries of readers) undergoing an enormous population boom comparable to China. Is it crazy to think this might be something to be excited about for the health of books? I think when these conversations arise, we tend to focus on what are still popular traditions. Some people bemoan the decline of rock music, but in the context of all music traditions that ever existed, the complaint is laughable. Consider the health of every tradition that anyone ever found great meaning and pleasure in. Music forms, dances, games, systems for thinking and living, forgotten forms of storytelling. There's just not the time to keep every worthwhile thing alive, so we have to search and choose wisely. | |||||||||||
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11-10-2022 | #166 | |||||||||||
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Re: (Why) Have we stopped reading fiction ?
One way to refresh interest in reading fiction, is to read aloud. The story takes on added life.
I also think that every literary work has its own accent, depending on the author's origin. Stories really need to be read in their own accent, to be comprehended and realized. I think it is a necessity, for them to fully flower. I wonder if American and non-English speakers, change their native accent, for example when reading a British author aloud? I really love speaking with an affected high-strung nasal Oxford accent, when reading some typically British writers. After a while it becomes natural, second nature, and less exaggerated. The dialect is already inherent in the text, so there is not much to it. Surrendering to it certainly helps diving deeper into the text, to better understand the mentality of the story, the characters and their social manners, and effectively stirs up what's between the lines. And it is so much fun! Like being an actor on stage. The snobbishness is just part of British culture, and you must allow yourself the pleasure of being swept along by it, otherwise you are missing out. Reading aloud is also good training, for finding out the correct pronunciation of more unfamiliar words (when reading silently, I rarely reflect as much over pronunciation). For other writers, who seem closer to Nature and the Celtic, like Arthur Machen, I love reading in a thick enforced Welsh accent, with rolling r's and i's turned into æ's. It is just a wonderful accent. A bit like Icelandic. Good and rough and wholesome. | |||||||||||
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11-13-2022 | #167 |
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Re: (Why) Have we stopped reading fiction ?
There are too many distractions: easy access to many books, films, music, etc., and much more online.
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11-13-2022 | #168 | |||||||||||
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Re: (Why) Have we stopped reading fiction ?
Been discovering this past year that I probably have ADD and it makes reading particularly difficult, explains a lot
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11-13-2022 | #169 | |||||||||||
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Re: (Why) Have we stopped reading fiction ?
Well, I would suggest reading by candle light. It is very calming to the nerves, and helps focus on the present.
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11-14-2022 | #170 | |||||||||||
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Re: (Why) Have we stopped reading fiction ?
You have younger eyes than mine. | |||||||||||
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