5 ms·

>You’ll never find me reading a book I don’t like Some of the best books I've ever read I didn't like at first. Love in Time of Cholera was an absolute slog fo

by soperj 5y ago

>You’ll never find me reading a book I don’t like Some of the best books I've ever read I didn't like at first. Love in Time of Cholera was an absolute slog for the first 89 pages, I didn't actually get through those pages the first time I tried to read it. It's one of my all time favourite books. First 30 pages of Dune were similar. Found the same with another book by Dostoevsky.

willhinsa 5y ago
Which Dostoevsky book?
- e40 5y ago
  I’m at that stage with The Brothers Karamazov right now. I have no idea what people see in it. Book 1 chapter 5.
  - notsureaboutpg 5y ago
  - funksta 5y ago
    The first 100-200 pages were a slog for me too. But pushing through was completely worth it, it's a masterpiece IMO
  - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
    Dostoevsky is one of those authors for me whom I just really cannot stand when reading the book, but there are always quotes from them and critical interpretations of them that I find absolutely amazing. Hemingway is the same, except for The Old Man and The Sea.
  - xwolfi 5y ago
    Get up to the Grand Inquisitor story. You can stop after that, that's the peak for me, it went downhill from there. It wasn't really fun to read. But like all russian novels, it's very long, devoid of adventure, full of characters you forget constantly. You read them to experience the russian soul, not to have fun. The best Dostoievsky for me is "The Player", one of the shortest and one whose lessons I constantly quote, especially around a horse race or a casino lol. If you want enjoyable classics, Alexandre Dumas or Theophile Gautier are my go to but Im French so maybe the anglo world has some authors too as brilliant as Dumas but I doubt it. The best russian classic is Master and Margherita, it's a bit less slow than average but Boulgakov is special (a bit their Kafka).
  - halgir 5y ago
    This was a strange one for me. Profoundly boring, yet oddly captivating. I wanted to stop reading it the whole way through, but I just couldn't.
- soperj 5y ago
  Notes from the underground. It's actually a two part novella. First part was very difficult to get through (I think it took me three tries), and then the second part was amazing. Couldn't have had the second part without the first though.
  - willhinsa 5y ago
    That is one of my favorite books. Why do you think the first part was difficult to get through for you?
downut 5y ago
Yeah. In the last three years I picked up Joyce's Ulysses, which I sputtered out on 35 years ago, and Pynchon's Mason & Dixon, which I sputtered out on 15 years ago. I now believe that Ulysses is the best book I've ever read, and Mason & Dixon is very good. So much process. People think there's a formula, not well known, that greatly raises the chance for "success" however defined, for everything. Nope. IMHO the key to "anti-mimetic"[0] living is to cultivate your inner bullshit detector. My friends have a fully functioning one; people who turned out to be false do not; I have no idea how to nurture one for anyone else. There is no process, other than get as broad non-digital experiences as you can and use those to learn to think for yourself. I have no idea how you can do that, because apparently no-one who is not my friend appears to think doing this is sane. [0] This Rene Girard stuff, fueled by lavish attention from Peter Thiel and his acolytes, is bullshit. Think not? Well a while ago, I thought it might have some validity, but then I read the review by Joshua Landy in my previous HN comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21955489#21956253 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21955489#21956253 The child comments are interesting too. A moral of the story is that my bullshit detector initially failed me, but eventually, with more experience, I got it straightened out.
- akomtu 5y ago
  > I have no idea how to nurture one for anyone else. The bullshit detector is usually intuition and, very rarely, is what's called 'wisdom'. Intuition is what I'd describe as "the right feeling" - ability to "hear" truth, in a sense. Wisdom is "the right knowledge" - ability to see the truth. Intuition is related to emotions, and can be improved by straigthening up one's emotions. An uncontrolled storm of emotions obscurates intuition, and hatred burns it. That's why, I think, a known occult aphorism says: "a moment of hatred erases eons of achievements". Wisdom is similarly related to thoughts and words, and so straightening up what one says and thinks, allows the wisdom to show up. The " all seeing eye" is the typical symbol of wisdom. Afaik, only few top scientists had it, and they attributed their ability to see truth to luck and lots of read books. I believe that most people out there give in to emotions, those gradually turn into something more sinister - hatred fueled by vanity, that burns their intuition to the ground and from that moment they're unable to feel what's right and what's wrong.
kayodelycaon 5y ago
Sure. That doesn’t work for me. Tried it. After some time in therapy, I had to unlearn the compulsion to finish books, movies, or tv shows that I don’t enjoy. If I’m reading for enjoyment, there’s plenty I can read. If I’m reading to learn, that’s why I’m here on HN. I have the next batch of acoup.blog and a 1890s textbook on ship handling on my eink tablet. Should keep me busy for the next month. :)

by soperj 5y ago

willhinsa 5y ago

Which Dostoevsky book?

e40 5y ago
I’m at that stage with The Brothers Karamazov right now. I have no idea what people see in it. Book 1 chapter 5.
- notsureaboutpg 5y ago
- funksta 5y ago
  The first 100-200 pages were a slog for me too. But pushing through was completely worth it, it's a masterpiece IMO
- bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  Dostoevsky is one of those authors for me whom I just really cannot stand when reading the book, but there are always quotes from them and critical interpretations of them that I find absolutely amazing. Hemingway is the same, except for The Old Man and The Sea.
- xwolfi 5y ago
  Get up to the Grand Inquisitor story. You can stop after that, that's the peak for me, it went downhill from there. It wasn't really fun to read. But like all russian novels, it's very long, devoid of adventure, full of characters you forget constantly. You read them to experience the russian soul, not to have fun. The best Dostoievsky for me is "The Player", one of the shortest and one whose lessons I constantly quote, especially around a horse race or a casino lol. If you want enjoyable classics, Alexandre Dumas or Theophile Gautier are my go to but Im French so maybe the anglo world has some authors too as brilliant as Dumas but I doubt it. The best russian classic is Master and Margherita, it's a bit less slow than average but Boulgakov is special (a bit their Kafka).
- halgir 5y ago
  This was a strange one for me. Profoundly boring, yet oddly captivating. I wanted to stop reading it the whole way through, but I just couldn't.
soperj 5y ago
Notes from the underground. It's actually a two part novella. First part was very difficult to get through (I think it took me three tries), and then the second part was amazing. Couldn't have had the second part without the first though.
- willhinsa 5y ago
  That is one of my favorite books. Why do you think the first part was difficult to get through for you?

downut 5y ago

Yeah. In the last three years I picked up Joyce's Ulysses, which I sputtered out on 35 years ago, and Pynchon's Mason & Dixon, which I sputtered out on 15 years ago. I now believe that Ulysses is the best book I've ever read, and Mason & Dixon is very good. So much process. People think there's a formula, not well known, that greatly raises the chance for "success" however defined, for everything. Nope. IMHO the key to "anti-mimetic"[0] living is to cultivate your inner bullshit detector. My friends have a fully functioning one; people who turned out to be false do not; I have no idea how to nurture one for anyone else. There is no process, other than get as broad non-digital experiences as you can and use those to learn to think for yourself. I have no idea how you can do that, because apparently no-one who is not my friend appears to think doing this is sane. [0] This Rene Girard stuff, fueled by lavish attention from Peter Thiel and his acolytes, is bullshit. Think not? Well a while ago, I thought it might have some validity, but then I read the review by Joshua Landy in my previous HN comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21955489#21956253 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21955489#21956253 The child comments are interesting too. A moral of the story is that my bullshit detector initially failed me, but eventually, with more experience, I got it straightened out.

akomtu 5y ago
> I have no idea how to nurture one for anyone else. The bullshit detector is usually intuition and, very rarely, is what's called 'wisdom'. Intuition is what I'd describe as "the right feeling" - ability to "hear" truth, in a sense. Wisdom is "the right knowledge" - ability to see the truth. Intuition is related to emotions, and can be improved by straigthening up one's emotions. An uncontrolled storm of emotions obscurates intuition, and hatred burns it. That's why, I think, a known occult aphorism says: "a moment of hatred erases eons of achievements". Wisdom is similarly related to thoughts and words, and so straightening up what one says and thinks, allows the wisdom to show up. The " all seeing eye" is the typical symbol of wisdom. Afaik, only few top scientists had it, and they attributed their ability to see truth to luck and lots of read books. I believe that most people out there give in to emotions, those gradually turn into something more sinister - hatred fueled by vanity, that burns their intuition to the ground and from that moment they're unable to feel what's right and what's wrong.

kayodelycaon 5y ago

Sure. That doesn’t work for me. Tried it. After some time in therapy, I had to unlearn the compulsion to finish books, movies, or tv shows that I don’t enjoy. If I’m reading for enjoyment, there’s plenty I can read. If I’m reading to learn, that’s why I’m here on HN. I have the next batch of acoup.blog and a 1890s textbook on ship handling on my eink tablet. Should keep me busy for the next month. :)