How does it feel when you find something you really really enjoy reading? Could you describe the feeling? Anons of /lit/, what do you enjoy reading? Not asking for examples (unless you wish to share), but rather, what is in essence a passage you love, composed of? What elevates your soul? Please write out your love of reading or writing, this is your exercise and I need to be convinced, I am your examinatorThis is a positively spirited thread, speak of what you love, leave your hate in the other threads
>>25121932i'll tell u if my isp isn't range banned for no reason again
>>25121932books aren't supposed to be enjoyable
>>25121932A common quality I find (and enjoy) in really great books is that they put you into sort of a trance.
>>25121932Fiction? I usually can't stop. I forget to eat and do whatever that I'm supposed to do. Now that I'm living by myself, I tend to avoid reading fiction because of this. And non-fiction isn't that enjoyable, however I love thinking about things that I've read in non-fiction, there is a rush when you make certain connections and my blood starts pumping, it is kinda crazy, but I love it.
>>25121961yeah dude when i realized what foucault really meant by knowledge is power, not that knowledge gives you power, but knowledge is literally power, knowledge production create social constructs which shape our lives. i was like ohhhh fuck that's insane. def biggest mind blown from reading so far. i mean it seems obv now, but before i read history of sexuality vol 1 i had not thought of that ever.
>>25121970It is good, it feels better than alcohol or weed. It does feel great. This is the kind of rush that would be somewhat the thing that I feel after sex, because it would make me really crave a smoking a cigarette.
>>25121942yes they are you mean frog>>25121954>a tranceof course, I feel that too. I feel like there is a lot of rhythm involved in this, sometimes an author uses too many commas and it stops your momentum too often, sometimes the exact opposite with too long phrases, it takes some times to get used to a book's rhythm, and sometimes it is impossible.>>25121961>is a rush when you make certain connections and my blood starts pumpingI share that. I find that finding a good idea represented in a text is akin to finding a good friend, and you enjoy the real effect of a loving bond that starts to form with the text or the author >>25121983Intellectual enjoyments are always simply higher than consumption pleasure. Even laughing, which is an intellectual activity, is usually more pleasurable. I'd say it's because it requires some amount of work, and work rewards with pride, which needs to be of a higher rank than worldly pleasures, otherwise we wouldn't feel the need to accomplish anything in our lives. I have to say, for me good passages of books always put me in the most serene states, I have those peaks of emotions as you all describe, but I think I prefer those moments who flow so well that I feel at peace. I like when things are made clear, when a mystery is resolved, when an explanation reaches its graceful concise conclusion, I like it when the things I read are as simple and de-stressing to my heart as the walk I often take in the parkI also love the parts when I can feel myself understanding someone's psychology, when I get to view through someone's eyes what it is like to live in this other world, or this other era of history, in Greece or Rome, in the renaissance or the enlightenment
>>25121954This.It's when reading ceases to be a chore.
i usually never force it-- not for long; but i don't need to either. i have TRAINED to enjoy virtually everything across all arts. but sometimes only as an artist or critic.other times i find myself contemplating what i'm reading, fantasizing, researching, etc.
>>25121932Reading a poem by Holderlin or Keats stimulates an itch that is strangely sensuous, but not quite. The tension in each verse, the musicality, the meaning, it is soothing and mystical. You become aware of the heights your mind is able to rise to.Reality is muddy and dark. Poetry is light.If you keep drinking wine, you will feel sleepy, and then in the aftermath, you will feel nauseous.But reading is a pleasure that does not give you a hangover. It always edificates. Each time you read a poem, you find something new in it. You keep edificating.
>>25121932i mostly read litfic, there's kinda two goals for me:1 is that it's just an engaging story that I can't wait to get back to. If anything in there can genuinely surprise me, make me happy/sad, or scared even, then I'm having a great time. Best case here is something makes me cry.2 is that I'm genuinely appreciating the artform/craft to the credit of the author. If the author is really utilizing technique successfully or just has really good creative ideas, even just beautiful prose that I have to stop and read 3 times, that shit really gets me. I'm not the most well-read person but I've been a huge music/art nerd my whole life, and I bring a lot of that with me to appreciating books. There's a lot of parallels between creative mediums imo, but it really hits me when a books is accomplishing something that has no music/art analogwhat about you OP?
>>25121932You know how right at the moment orgasm everything else falls away and your focus is consumed by the feeling of the orgasm? It is a lot like that but lasting for hours at a time and without the cleanup or shame at the end.
>>25121942Do you frogposters purposefully make the most inane comments on this board or is there simply a correlation between being retarded and posting frogs?
>>25122221>or is there simply a correlation between being retarded and posting frogs?bingo
>>25121932For me it has to do with imagination and vividness. There are some passages in books that feel as if you were "making" things with your mind, meaning that they compose an image made of multiple sensory feelings - so not technically an image, but a sensible object that does not exist. This has to do with several elements of language, going from words used, precision, word order in a sentence, rhythm, etc. Beautiful imaginative literature has the effect of being able to orchestrate your imagination and put it in a state of flow. I also find beautiful that this feeling is somehow "radioactive", meaning that it lingers off even when you space out from the page, and maybe look at something outside - plus, if you focus, you can bring it into everyday perception and "extend it", for instance by projecting tactile feeling on something your are seeing. It's a bit hard to describe but it's as if your sense of sight also became a sort of "hand" that can touch stuff - this, for me, has been a direct consequence of reading imaginative literature for some years; I can clearly remember not being able to do this, then beginning to do this as a consequence of reading literature, and now having it active at every moment.
>>25121932>this is your exercise and I need to be convinced, I am your examinatorthis is my least favourite tone for an OP.but i'll throw out there that the common quality of all my best reading experiences is a sense that the world has been enlarged. like feeling a breeze on your face that evokes a distant continent, or discovering a strange overgrown building on a street you'd walked a hundred times before. like meeting someone new and thinking, 'i didn't know a person like that could could even exist.'doomscrolling has the exact opposite effect - the world seems to fall away, becomes mere sense data on a simulatory screen, and can promise you nothing new. no hidden depths, no horizon that calls to you, just airless claustrophobia. you feel like nothing more than neurons in a petri dish, being prodded and stimulated, deep in some underground lab.
>>25121932You feel invested in it. You stop looking at how many pages you have left for the chapter to end. When not reading, you feel the drive to keep reading that book.
>>25122444>>this is your exercise and I need to be convinced, I am your examinator>this is my least favourite tone for an OP.sowwy for that, I just want people to be sincere and to push themselves a little. Although every one is anon, posting in here has forced me to up the standards of my passing thoughts, because I expect to be read. Formal settings, constraints, expectations, standards, push you to write things that you are more proud of, although I enjoy the silly good-hearted shitposts and the comforting ambiance of this place, sometimes I really crave for more, I know people around here are intelligent, but they never seem to express themselves that much if you don't give them formal settings or inspire them with passion.Framing this as an ""exercise"", at least from my perspective, could prevent thoughts from being too small, silly, and I have examined that you did all show passion :) Idk, sometimes it takes someone to pay attention to you, so that you feel invigorated to do good work, because you know if you do, someone will feel grateful; one's own pride is sometimes not enough to push through everything, the perspective of gratitude is a good complementary force. I could have been more gentle in my tone maybe
>>25121932I usually enjoy reading passages in prose that is at the same time very poetical and relatable. It doesn't reflect reality in the way common prose does, rather is very beautiful and transcendental. I don't think can express it the way it really is, unfortunately.
>>25121932There's this odd... rigor behind it all. Like when you've been reading for long enough to be entranced, and you finally make the decision to stop reading. Walk out into life, limpid, translucent; there's a comfortable weight on your shoulders, all around you, pulling down on you ever so slightly, perhaps tenderly. Looking out of an open window, open inasmuch as there's still a screen, you can see nature... if you ignore the particulars. There are thousands of little, black, industrial slits that form tiny squares. You find it fun to rapidly switch your focus between the particular and general, in this, they both lose much of their defining characteristics. You can't tell the difference at this point, and you, frankly, enjoy the dissociative state. You can stay here forever; I can stay here forever.
>>25121942skill issue
>>25121932For me it's when everything around me quiet. And when I'm not reading I find myself thinking about it or wishing I was at home reading. My thoughts are usually quite loud and intrusive and reading something I enjoy usually calms that down significantly which allows me to meditate on what I'm reading.
it feels like entering a whole diffrent world atleast when it comes to fiction
>>25121932something really good expands my sense of the possible in both art and being itself, as strange as that is to say -- it expands my capacity to see the world, transforms it. everything swells, opens into itself, unfolds. >>25121970>>25121961absolutely agree, had the same ohh fuck realization from foucault. I still remember when the is/ought gap and bundle theory in hume got me. had heard the idea that some people denied a solid "self" but didn't really get why, when I first read hume's argument in the treatise and it finally clicked I remember muttering "jesus" to myself under my breath lmfao. >>25122444>tripschecked. the person metaphor's great, agreed
