Author Topic: The Trouble With Fiction  (Read 971 times)

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Nation of One

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The Trouble With Fiction
« on: January 29, 2017, 11:49:22 pm »
Now that I have been so locked into the study of textbooks, venturing out nightly to return to Schopenhauer after midnight, I was wondering why I am no longer drawn to any fiction.   I was doing a search for "dark pessimistic literature".   By page 7 or so in the results I came across a post by Karl from SAY NO TO LIFE: The Trouble With Fiction

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Works such as Journey To The End of The Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine, No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai, the novels of Thomas Bernhard and those of Samuel Beckett (although there is in the Beckett academic industry a conspiracy to portray him as a life-affirming comedian rather than the dark sage he really is) provide rare and desperately needed oases amongst the infinite libraries of life-affirming prose. Personally, I find my flagging taste for fiction to be a source of discomfort, as reading is surely one of the few great and last refuges from suffering.

Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

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Nation of One

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Re: The Trouble With Fiction
« Reply #1 on: January 30, 2017, 09:55:14 am »
I started reading Dazai's No Longer Human, as suggested by Karl of SAY NO TO LIFE.

It was translated from Japanese.  The protagonist is kind of Dostoyevskian-nuerotic and ultra self-conscious - hyper-sensitive like the Underground man.

« Last Edit: January 30, 2017, 09:58:02 am by 2deep »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

Holden

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Herr Hentrich the Writer
« Reply #2 on: January 30, 2017, 10:37:12 am »
Schopenhauer never really argues in favour of atheism.He considers it as self- evident. Cioran never really argues about pessimism,he considers it as self-evident. Now,you Herr Hentrich,you ,have read  both Schopenhauer & Cioran, you would obviously find most of the fiction boring. Most of the fiction writers’ intellectual bandwidth ends  where yours begins-they obviously have very  little to say  to you.

But,you see, its YOU, who is the WRITER now. The end of Hentrich the reader was the genesis of Hentrich the writer.
And oh,if only you could read what you write with my eyes!

La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

Nation of One

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Re: The Trouble With Fiction
« Reply #3 on: February 01, 2017, 12:43:06 am »
I am relieved that you are able to get something out of what I type (or have scribbled).  The truth is, I do not see myself as a "writer".  Maybe I just write as truthfully as possible.  Like Cioran (CHOO-RHAN), being able to "formulate" what it is I am feeling does bring some relief.  You have felt similar feelings, and so it resonates with you.

I think that I just write "letters" in a kind of diary, even when the diary is an open diary.

I will never write an official "book" ... I use the old fashioned pencil and paper method for keeping track of what I have been studying, and - when it comes to mathematics especially, I am almost paralyzed without pencil and paper.  I don't know how your grandfather managed working with figures and symbols in the sand. 

I am resigned to live out the remainder of my days in my own little world, tinkering with mathematics as you say.  As I am approaching the age that Hesse's Steppenwolf set as the time to end his life, I realize that, now that I look back upon my life, I really wish I could make a more meaningful connection between calculus and physics; and, as long as I have access to computers, to incorporate programming into this integrated approach as well.

Hence, I no longer have much to contribute to my disgruntled brothers and sisters in a rage against the machine.  I am relieved to be warming my insides with homemade soup rather than a bottle of whiskey.  I prefer hiding away in a room filled with mathematics books where there is no need for any bullshiit posturing or jumping through hoops or approval seeking.

One of the things I dislike about religion is the encouragement of approval seeking. I didn't like that aspect of the university education either.  I got the approval (the grade) but I felt lost, like it was all a huge cruel farce.

Now I intend to understand as best as I can, and I go as slowly as I need to. 

So, the poet in me is dead.   

I sympathize with all living beings, but, this communication we have going on here, including Raul of Paraguay, fulfills that need for validating myself as a thinking man.  Maybe, if there were no Internet, I would feel compelled to scribble a great deal more.   

I don't think I could add much.  The world has too many books already, doesn't it?

Maybe, after about 10 years of doing what I do, "God willin' n' the crick don't rise," I might have some insight on how those who feel they have been thrown over board might go about studying math, physics, and programming as ends in themselves.  Maybe I might be able to contribute to improving some individuals' mental health ... This world can make one feel as though they might as well just kill themselves.   Maybe there is a method to my madness. 

I mean, suppose you were to suffer some kind of accident that made it impossible for you to comply with the demands required to maintain full time employment ... and you were confined to your room like a Japanese Hikikomori.   You might find there is a private realm waiting to greet you in your fortress of solitude, where you would never be bored.

I have no desire to speak to the masses through writing.  Well, whatever I might write is not suited for mass consumption anyway. 

We are judged by society by our actions, not by the things we might write or say.

So, I must be seen as a deadbeat weirdo who is obsessed with better understanding some things I may or may not have been exposed to a long time ago ... or not so very long ago ...

... and only because I am currently in a stable environment!

You know as well as I do, that were I suddenly dropped in a Hell Hole with a great deal of misery surrounding me, I probably would be inclined to sink into the downward spiral.

Maybe one day I will have developed such a strong resolve to remain in my own little world that I will be able to retain this studious lifestyle no matter where I end up; but, for now, I hide with my books.   I shamelessly hide with my books, and I do not pay homage to those lionized by the media ... the regulators.

It is best I refrain from commenting on the state of the world, politics, etc ...

I prefer to think about algebra and calculus!    :-\
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

Holden

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Re: The Trouble With Fiction
« Reply #4 on: February 01, 2017, 01:26:49 pm »
Quote
One of the things I dislike about religion is the encouragement of approval seeking. I didn't like that aspect of the university education either.  I got the approval (the grade) but I felt lost, like it was all a huge cruel farce.
Reminds  me of something by Cioran:"People turn livid with fury in presence of someone who pays no attention whatever to the effect he makes.What are we to say to him,and what are we to expect from him? Either keep some vestiges of the  monkey ,or stay home".

Yes,that's how it is.They expect monkey tricks from everyone in the office.Better to stay at home.I mean,our true home,non-existence.
By the way,I came across something rather intriguing:

True Christ would not have 5000,not even 12 disciples. He would have no disciples at all.
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

Nation of One

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Re: The Trouble With Fiction
« Reply #5 on: February 06, 2017, 12:33:30 am »
Well, I broke the non-fiction spell ... Dazai's No Longer Human ... about half an hour per night ... 3 nights ... quick read.

I enjoyed it.  The protagonist struggled with booze and suicidal thoughts.
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

Nation of One

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Re: The Trouble with Fiction
« Reply #6 on: November 18, 2021, 10:23:49 pm »
After a short stop at an Immediate Care center to verify Maman has a pinched nerve in her arm, we slipped into a B&N bookseller.   I was looking to see if there was a hard copy of Look Who's Back by Timur Vermes.   I was just curious.  It was not on the shelf.   Needless to say, neither was Wildberger's Divine Proportions: Rational Trigonometry to Universal Geometry.

Browsing bookstores, much like browsing the general libraries, is quite a different experience than hunting for literature on the internet.   One thing leads to another.   There was no Vermes in the Fiction section, but I looked up to see The Last Great Road Bum by Hector Tobar.

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Joe Sanderson died in pursuit of a life worth writing about. He was, in his words, a “road bum,” an adventurer and a storyteller, belonging to no place, people, or set of ideas. He was born into a childhood of middle-class contentment in Urbana, Illinois and died fighting with guerillas in Central America. With these facts, acclaimed novelist and journalist Héctor Tobar set out to write what would become The Last Great Road Bum.

A decade ago, Tobar came into possession of the personal writings of the late Joe Sanderson, which chart Sanderson’s freewheeling course across the known world, from Illinois to Jamaica, to Vietnam, to Nigeria, to El Salvador—a life determinedly an adventure, ending in unlikely, anonymous heroism.

The Last Great Road Bum is the great American novel Joe Sanderson never could have written, but did truly live—a fascinating, timely hybrid of fiction and nonfiction that only a master of both like Héctor Tobar could pull off.

So, is this fiction?   It is in the fiction section.

Then I glanced over to my left to have the title Mad at the World: A Life of John Steinbeck by William Souder.  This book was also in the Fiction section ... and yet it is actually a biography.   It looks quite readable.   Another one I may have to track down a hard copy of.

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A man by turns quick-tempered, compassionate, and ultimately brilliant, Steinbeck could be a difficult person to like. Obsessed with privacy, he was mistrustful of people. Next to writing, his favorite things were drinking and womanizing and getting married, which he did three times. And while he claimed indifference about success, his mid-career books and movie deals made him a lot of money—which passed through his hands as quickly as it came in. And yet Steinbeck also took aim at the corrosiveness of power, the perils of income inequality, and the urgency of ecological collapse, all of which drive public debate to this day.

Steinbeck remains our great social realist novelist, the writer who gave the dispossessed and the disenfranchised a voice in American life and letters. Eloquent, nuanced, and deeply researched, Mad at the World captures the full measure of the man and his work.

Lastly, while smoking a cigarette packed with pipe tobacco out in front of the store, I noticed A Carnival of Snackery: Diaries (2003-2020) by David Sedaris.  I hunted it down in the Humor section.   Ah, a humorist/diarist!

(There's no right way to keep a diary, but if there's an entertaining way, David Sedaris seems to have mastered it.  From the descriptive prose I've witnessed coming from Holden, I suspect quite a collection of entries might be gathered.)



This Sedaris also authored Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002.



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"For forty years, David Sedaris has kept a diary in which he records everything that captures his attention-overheard comments, salacious gossip, soap opera plot twists, secrets confided by total strangers. These observations are the source code for his finest work, and through them he has honed his cunning, surprising sentences. Now, Sedaris shares his private writings with the world. Written with a sharp eye and ear for the bizarre, the beautiful, and the uncomfortable, and with a generosity of spirit that even a misanthropic sense of humor can't fully disguise."--Provided by publisher.

While I am tempted to keep printing out pages from the PDF of Divine Proportions and taking notes into a special unruled-pages notebook, these books jumped out at me, and I do feel a strong impulse to rediscover this world of literature.

In the Gargoyles thread, in a post called The Futility of Having a Life, I recently noted what Cioran wrote in  ‘Beyond the Novel' - and right after that, a quote which may confirm Cioran's view that the most authentic literature is to be found in letters and diaries:

“There was a time when the artist mobilized all his defects to produce a work which concealed himself; the notion of exposing his life to the public probably NEVER occurred to him. We do not imagine Dante or Shakespeare keeping track of the trifling incidents of their lives in order to bring them to other people’s attention. Perhaps they even preferred giving a false image of what they were.” ~ Emile M. Cioran

While "Mad at the World" is a biography, these other books:  the two by David Sedaris, and the one by Hector Tobar, appear to be centered around actual diaries, which, to me, is exciting.  I might learn something.  I might be inspired to keep such a diary again, even if a digital diary. 

Maybe there is a way to turn our day-to-day anguish into literature.   Who knows?

At any rate, at least I will be able to explore this Sedaris.  There is a full moon above the rain clouds, and the Steppenwolf is going to have to content himself with drinking warm soup and staying dry. 
« Last Edit: November 19, 2021, 12:45:57 am by mike »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

Nation of One

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Re: The Trouble With Fiction
« Reply #7 on: November 19, 2021, 12:45:27 am »
I started reading A Carnival of Snackery, and, yes, the read is entertaining, but nothing at all the way I find myself writing.  I suppose my goal has never been to entertain anyone whatsoever, but, rather, to disturb myself with catastrophic introspection.

Who takes such detailed notes of actual conversations?  Did he walk around with a tape recorder on in his head?

I try to sleep, but remain restless, even though "I" am very sleepy.

Didn't Schopenhauer write something like, "I do not write for your amusement.  You will learn something."

Likewise, I do not think that I write anything down with the intention of entertaining anyone.   Diaries as entertainment.  What a concept.   Maybe it will be interesting just to read the diary entries of one who "travels the world."   I suppose I am one of those kinds of writers who is destined never to be read, since I have never really had any audience in mind other than some future version of my own consciousness.

« Last Edit: November 19, 2021, 03:56:36 pm by mike »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

Ibra

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Re: The Trouble With Fiction
« Reply #8 on: November 20, 2021, 06:44:28 am »
mike, eccentric of jersey

I am avid reader of yours, raul and holden posts. here, It is really one of the last asylums of sanity around the internet, at least for me. While there are many interesting reads around the web, but authors twist them and steer them away towards some kind of goal, ideology and persuasion to sell some goods or ideas. there is no un-faltered honesty like in this board. If I will miss something If the web went down, It would be the posts here. luckily I have the archived copy which you thankfully, made available on Archive.org earlier.

I am savouring the "the Nighwatches" which you recommended before. This is my style of literature, a commentary and notes about what life really is.

"catastrophic introspection" what a way to put it  ;D. mike, you damn talented in the holy grail of literature, math and philosophy.

 I diluted one small nugget of ideas here to an acquaintance of mine and he was shocked. He suggested I get a girlfriend or a wife as a remedy to my lack of ambition and my tedium, I told him that my problem is with life itself. he called me later  that night, and told me I am weird. he couldn't fathom that one could slander life itself. damn people live oblivious to big questions of life; bread and circuses indeed.


mike, your writings are much appreciated. It's an honor to get a chance to communicate with you all here.

stay well, and enjoy your tobacco.

« Last Edit: November 20, 2021, 09:59:17 am by Ibra »
Suffering is the only fruit of human race

Nation of One

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Re: The Trouble With Fiction
« Reply #9 on: November 20, 2021, 02:15:50 pm »
Ibra,

My heart smiles upon reading your validation.  You had once told me that the Muse of Truth had favored me, and I will openly acknowledge here that this had helped a great deal to sustain my sanity.

Lately, I have had no inclination to type or even scribble.  I've just been experimenting with observing the raw reality of my inner life.  This had been suggested to me by Holden.   Just this morning, I read (out loud) Martin Butler's "The Pessimist's Handbook" (not to be confused with the collection of Schopenhauer's "popular essays".)   I was curious about how that PDF file ended up on my Kindle, so I did some research here on our humble little message board.   As it turns out, this honest thinker turned author was discovered by Raul of Paraguay earlier this year:  (Spinoza on the Futility of Remorse, Guilt, Shame, and Repentance).  That thread alone, the one that Holden started, "A Question for Herr Hauser and Senor Raul," if printed, would be 710 pages long.   It is the tip of a Big Mother Iceberg.

Sometimes I will "print to PDF file" then send the entire thread to an ereader (Kindle).  It is actually very good reading for insomniacs.   ;D

This message board is not aimed at the masses, but at those courageous minds that delight in contemplating certain unpleasant brute facts about our existence.  None of us will know for sure if any of the others are in some kind of trouble; but as there are literally only a handful of us, one's disappearance will be noticed.

I am glad you are safe and sound for the moment.  As we all know, any of us could evaporate into the void at any given moment.

I had been through some minor heartache recently, and it was extremely comforting to have Brother Holden listen to my plight (through private messages).  His council has been wise.   Please do feel free to take advantage of the private message feature on the board.  We are fortunate to have sustained this living message board, destined to be archived on The Wayback Machine.   In actuality, we are carrying on a kind of Gortbusters Tradition here.

I have also enjoyed reading  "the Nighwatches" --- I would have sworn that Silenus suggested this read, since I accidentally associate it with Thomas Bernhard, the author of Gargoyles (March 2021), but the work (by anonymous German author) is named in Born to Fear: Interviews with Thomas Ligotti  (page 89, in the section Work Not Done?: An Interview with Thomas Ligotti) [March 2020]:

Wagner: Recently I read an old interview with you in the magazine Tekeli-li.  I found it very interesting that you mentioned the unknown German author of the book The Nightwatches as some kind of reinforcement for your own work.  Is it by chance the book Natchwachen, that was published under the nom-de-plume Bonaventura at the beginning of the nineteenth century?  This is one of the forgotten masterpieces of the Romantic period and is hardly known even in Germany.

Ligotti:
The Nightwatches is indeed a forgotten masterpiece.  Any book that is so explicitly at odds with the social and religious culture of the world, especially during the period it was written, is doomed to be ignored.  A modern-day counterpart to this book is the work of Austrian novelist and playwright Thomas Bernhard.  But Bernhard was always raging against the Nazi mentality that he saw as still holding sway within Austria, so his work has been embraced somewhat, at least in Europe.  His work is still too grim for consumption by English-speaking countries.  English and American readers will only tolerate books that ultimately uphold the status quo and offer people reasons why their miserable lives are worth living.
_______________________________________________________________

It turns out that Silenus did RE-call my attention to this masterpiece in his thread, The Nightwatches of Bonaventura (January 2021)

Maybe I will start a "blank thread" which points to Martin Butler's website.  I would think that, were any of us in a relatively affluent position with access to the right kinds of resources, we could reconstruct much of what has been considered here.   

I unofficially give anyone in the world permission to explore, investigate, and organize what survives of this board or archive.org to incorporate into their own "work".   Copyright is the ruin of all literature.  We may be original thinkers, but it is clear that there have been others like us before, and there will be others like us in a possible future - they, as Salinger points out, will, in turn, most likely appreciate our little contributions and suggestions, just as we appreciate a presence like Martin Butler.

We can expect to be ignored, and yet here we are, communicating.   How many readers does it take to be read?   One reads as an individual entity.  We, each one of us, is at once potential receiver and sender of these gems.

To clear things up, there are 3 different authors I focus on in this post:

first, the anonymous author of Nightwatches (suggested by both Ligotti AND by our very own Silenus);
secondly, Thomas Bernhard (suggested by Silenus);
lastly, Martin Butler (discovered by Raul of Paraguay).

This message board has been a kind of salvation for me as well, even if only a sporadic and temporary kind of salvation.

PEACE
« Last Edit: November 22, 2021, 07:51:28 am by mike »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

Holden

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Re: The Trouble With Fiction
« Reply #10 on: November 21, 2021, 01:33:03 pm »

I've just been experimenting with observing the raw reality of my inner life.-Herr Hauser


What I have noticed is that most people hardly know themselves,let alone others and yet they aspire to add as many “friends” on Facebook as possible.

Schopenhauer knew himself quite well. I am not quite sure about Hegel.Even when I am all alone in the house( my preferred state of being), my mind is always racing. One thought after another. Feelings of guilt,of shame. The whole three ring circus!

What you possess and offer is a world-view that is strong enough to withstand the ceaseless assaults of the Gort.

Last month when I was suffering from, what I now believe was common cold, I felt completely phsycially drained. It pinned me down.Even an ailment like that, which people tend to take lighly, can turn a man into worm.
It is now plain to me,I do not wish to achieve anything, go anywhere, or meet anyone, but I do wish to “Understand”. And that very much includes mathematical understanding.

If I had never read Schopenhauer, I could have said to myself,well, you never were offered the right guidance ,so if you do not possess true “Understanding”, then, that is quite alright. But now I do not have that excuse. I might still fail to reach the kind the understanding I am moving towards. But that would be due to terrible circumstances and maybe my personal deficiencies. It would not be because I did not get proper guidance. I think you are the great-grandson Schopenhauer never had.

Please continue to be strong.If people around you fail to recognise who you truly are, then, they are the ones losing out.
I might have begun to see mathematics, the way Schopenhauer says one ought to see it-intuitively.Yet, as they say, “And miles to go before I sleep”.

My father is always in a rush. It makes me laugh. I,on the other  hand, am quite willing to wait till the end of time to attain the kind of “Understanding” I wish to have.

Take care.

La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.