Unirionically, how do you identify themes in a book?I just read the book, and either I like the characters, or I don't
You identify structure and then theme follows. First part of the book lays it all out and tells you what to read for.
>>25198434it's what the characters spend their time thinking aboutdo you spend your time complaining about the difficulty of books or do you restrict yourself to video games
>>25198440I mostly spend my time on 4chan.
>>25198440>it's what the characters spend their time thinking aboutWhat shit do you read that the the characters are used so thinly for exposition?
>>25198443Why even have characters or exposition at all? Real literature defies structure.
>>25198437So like, do all books do this? No one has ever explained this to me. I honestly think people are just making this shit up.
>>25198449So, you don't read? >>25198451Vast majority of books of any worth do this. Tell me some of the books you have read, I will walk you through it if you have read anything that I have that is fresh enough in my memory.
>>25198472The Crying of Lot 49. It was just stuff happening, ikd. It was funny.
>>25198483lol. Lot 49 is almost what that that other anon said about it being just what the characters talk about, there is some subtext thrown in but structure is just the plot and disconnected from theme. Any of Pynchon's other major works would have worked wonderfully, his minor works would also work if I could remember them well enough. Other than Lot 49, Pynchon is a structure geek and is a great author for learning this stuff from. Pynchon wrote lot 49 because his publisher offered him a bunch of money for a book like V. that focused on the characters and dropped all the lit stuff. Is that all you have read?
>>25198502A read about Half of A Confederacy of Dunces earlier in the year. Again, it was just stuff happening. It was funny. I don't know what I'm supposed to extract from any of it, exactly.
>>25198508I got bored when it kept shifting back to the corporate CEO character. I don't know what they were doing with that stuff.
>>25198508Confederacy of Dunces lacks structure and its lack of structure is a big part of why he had issues getting it published, it is quite random and lols. A lot of these entry level books that are fun are primarily pushed because they are fun and people believe fun will translate into a love of literature but that only works for coomers. If you really want to get into literature tell me about yourself, what do you like, what interests you? We can find a book which will be a good entry for you and if you want we can do regular threads as you read it.
>>25198528I like stories, and I like it when the language paints a picture in your mind. I like it when characters feel like real people, and you can kind of poke around in their brain and get a sense for who they are.I like sitcoms and episodic sci-fi shows from the 90's.And it's not that I don't read books. I've read books all my life. I just internalise them entirely on the level of story and character. when I listen to people who are seriously into books, and they talk about themes, I wonder where the hell they're getting that from.
>>25198536The Corrections would probably be good for you, it is definitely informed by the sitcoms of the 90s and you were drawn to Pynchon for what ever reason and it also has the Pynchon influence. Bleeding Edge could also be good, but I am not sure it would work as an entry, it certainly inundated in the 90s including 90s sitcoms, Rachel hair is a running shtick through the book. A lot of the of early novels that were originally published as serials has a fair amount in common with 90s episodic scifi despite not being scifi, things like War & Peace and Dickens, but they are not scifi, just very episodic and they develop in much the same way. Not the best for learning theme but they work in the same way so possibly a good place to get your feet wet. Calvino's Cosmicomics/T-Zero is probably the closest I can think of to episodic scifi of any era, but might be a bit too abstract and literary as an entry, but like episodic scifi you can sample a few episodes without much commitment.
>>25198472>Vast majority of books of any worth do this.can't imagine preferring books to all do shit the same way
>>25198566I'm asking how people read a book and identify a theme though, and if that's even a real thing.I've read a lot of books. I just listed a handful of things I picked up recently. I pretty much started with Narnia when i was a child.Obviously when I say "yeah, I thought it was funny, and I liked that character", I'm missing something that other people are getting out of the experience.I also read Blood Meridian recently, because everyone was reading it. I liked the journey, and all of the vivid descriptions of deserts. I have no idea what else I was supposed to be taking away from it. Colonialism is rough? Sure.
Protip: Themes are obvious when they exist, and if you don't see any, but someone tells you they're there, they're just putting words in the author's mouth to sound smart. If that person is the author, they're just recycling some interpretation someone else told them ex post facto to sound smart.Never give an inch to the tinfoils that insist on finding deeper meaning everywhere they look. Sometimes a pipe is just a pipe.
>>25198575You can structure a book on anything. >>25198577I get that, but it is impossible to explain how to identify theme in a generic sense within the constraints of 3000 character posts, that would take a book. We need a point of reference. I might be able to do it with BM but it goes into heavy literary technique shit and does not have anything approaching a concrete objective theme, it acknowledges subjectivity. Identifying theme in BM is no different than any book but this might be like trying to explain calculus to someone who only knows arithmetic; possible but an uphill battle especially when trying to use it to explain how to identify theme in a generic sense an not just theme in context of BM. I will think on it a bit. You seem to exclusively read the worst books possible for our needs.
>>25198587like I say, I've read a lot of thingsI think there would be no point looking for the themes in pulp sci-fi or sword and sorcery though, because there kind of are none.
>>25198593It doesn't matter how much you have read, we still need that point of reference because I am not going to write a book 3000 characters at a time to explain it all in a generic way.BM almost works but it takes structure to the extreme of simplicity and he complicates the fuck out of it through stylistic tricks. Just as I said above he gives it to you upfront in the beginning and he does it with the first sentence, that simple flat directive, see the child. That is the structure, you just see it, it is a constant and something you accept but when the Indians are charging down on you he does not describe the chaos, he pulls out his thesaurus and creates chaos. We understand BM through its structure just like every other book and like most books he explains how to understand it all in the beginning, it goes further than the first sentence and he continues on to show how he is going to use that insanely simple structure for surprisingly complex and nuanced ends,You are lost on this stuff because you have apparently only read the worst possible books to learn it.
>>25198623I would have no idea how to start seeing any of what you just said. When does this start to click? I just don't really get it. I see narratives, and characters, and I see pictures in my head.
>>25198627If you just wait for it to click it might take years or might never happen or might happen on the next book you read. Once you start seeing how this stuff works it becomes much easier, it is just that first hurdle that is the trick. The problem with the general entry level books is that they are recommended purely out of the hopes that you will enjoy them or identify with them so you will keep reading in the hopes it will all eventually just click, a completely idiotic way to go about things. Even the difficult writers lay it all out up front, in that first quart or so of the book they give everything you need to know to understand the rest, you just need to learn how to identify the clues they give you which means learning how literature works instead of reducing it to reading. It seems difficult and abstract but if we had a suitable point of reference I could get you over that first hurdle in no time; point out the clues they give in the beginning, show how that applies to the rest and you would call yourself a retard for missing it. It is one of those things that seems really complex and difficult but once you get it, it is easy and then you start seeing how authors play with it and screw with you and it becomes great fun.
>>25198578this. is. NOT. a. PIPE.
for me personally all i want a novel to be is new-feeling. the structure is for the author to worry about and for me to care about if i REALLY like reading it. theres a lot of fiction out there man so i dont have time to care about "getting it" in most cases, only if im seeing interesting uses of language. frankly OP i find that books with explicit themes feel hamfisted and youre reading just fine the way you are. im in the minority opinion though i figure
>>25198434I mean.. the book your reading... what are they about?
you have to be over 100iq
>>25198578I've always thought this was because the person can't (or doesn't want to) articulate what they've identified as a tendril of a broader idea that the more easily identifiable ideas can be better connected to. This would require using different words and concepts that might not have the same weight they want them to, like how everything is an allegory for capitalism or an incredibly specific contemporary political issue.
>>25198715characters doing things.There's a sequence of events, and then the book ends.
