6 ms·

I think what you read is the key here. Mindless reading of text messages, news headlines and social media posts is very different cognitively than reading actua

I think what you read is the key here. Mindless reading of text messages, news headlines and social media posts is very different cognitively than reading actual literature, something like Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow.

leobg 4y ago
Interested in sharing what makes this particular work valuable, in your eyes? I‘m assuming that you‘ve read many books. So if you single out this one as an example for a particularly good read, I‘m curious to hear why. Thanks!
- Dan_Sylveste 4y ago
  There's an element of irony here I suspect. Gravity's Rainbow is (IMHO) a _good_ book but it's a pain in the neck to read as a lot of the writing is... complex. There's a true point being made that a lot of social media content is incredibly badly written and the brain 'teaches itself' to fill in blanks that you don't have to fill in when reading literature, though. If you go from reading books (any books, really, anything that's been published) to reading reddit you have to go through an adjustment period as so much of what's on the screen looks like gibberish as it's so un-edited.
bumby 4y ago
I think the author tries to capture the counterpoint: that much of the effect is due to the sheer volume of text. From the article: "...we would have to account for the quality of reading too, as much of it involves skimming and darting around the page. But the sheer quantity matters...We are so used to our screens bombarding us with text — news, tweets, emails — that we are almost surprised to discover that the walls around us have nothing to say. The sudden absence of words — the evaporation of the sense of control they give us — feels disorienting. "
goalieca 4y ago
People spend too much time in their heads and not enough in the real world. We used to say people need to stop reading books and start talking to people.
- formerly_proven 4y ago
  People need to get out and touch grass way more often.
- HKH2 4y ago
  People need to cut back on fiction. Even things intended to be non-fiction are fictionalized; can you name one documentary without background music?
deepsun 4y ago
... or Hacker News comments.
purplerabbit 4y ago
Social media posts may be bad for you brain, but my personal opinion of Gravity’s Rainbow is that ~everyone who “enjoys” that painful slog does so because of the “literary” status “enjoying” Gravity’s Rainbow affords them
- jamiek88 4y ago
  Is it not enough that you just didn’t enjoy it? You have to tell yourself that everyone who did enjoy it is just pretending? Why?
  - purplerabbit 4y ago
    There’s definitely some fairness to your callout. To make a long story short, I was once quite invested in the genre of literary fiction, and eventually became disillusioned when I realized I had been sucked into a prestige game. My old bitterness comes out in my comment
bigDinosaur 4y ago
I smiled at the idea that Gravity's Rainbow is where you might start with 'actual literature'. A book so notoriously difficult to read that it has many guides on doing so and people have described to me how books such as Infinite Jest were light reading in comparison. I don't think you need to go quite as far as Pynchon ;-)
- BLKNSLVR 4y ago
  Start with The Crying of Lot 49, which is dense-ish but short, then Bleeding Edge, which is longer but closer to the storyline of a traditional novelist, and is semi-sci-fi. I then proceeded to Inherent Vice (because of the movie) and then Vineland. Vineland was difficult and heavy in parts, but I enjoyed it overall (the whole chapter on how the protagonist describes the receiving of a business card feels like some kind of fever dream). I own Gravity's Rainbow, but haven't yet had the courage to open to page 1.
  - mcdermott 4y ago
    My gateway drug was the Inherent Vice movie, after that I started with the Crying of Lot 49 and workes my way through his oeuvre. That's when I realized what literature was for and started reading like a madman ever since. Ony Marcel Proust perhaps bests Pynchon.
    - sebastialonso 4y ago
      I feel like I've accidentally stumbled into a secret club. What's the deal with this Pynchon fellow?
      - BLKNSLVR 4y ago
        You kinda have to read some of his work to know, and it does feel like a secret club with fairly exclusive membership - I don't really belong, I've only ventured into the shallows thus far :) But the deal is: Prose that creates a jungle-like density of meaning through the use of long sentences, creatively unusual descriptions using unexpected combinations of words with meanings just slightly twisted to fit into the size of the 'box that's available'. Prose that acutely both describes and evokes the feel of specific times and places. I probably miss more than half of the subtlety of his work through lack of familiarity with the 'time and place' stuff. I enjoy the structure created by the delicately woven words, however. An abridged quoting of Hunter S. Thompson for a particularly memorable evocation of time and place (because this quote is more coherent and memorable than Pynchon): Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime...San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of... History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of "history" it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons nobody really understands at the time--and which never explains in retrospect, what actually happened... There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda...You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning... So now, less than five years later, you can go up a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost SEE the high water mark--that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back. Full excerpt here: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1074-strange-memories-on-this-nervous-night-in-las-vegas-five https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1074-strange-memories-on-th...
enviclash 4y ago
I fully agree, mindless reading scaled up and has very limited added value. On the other hand, a good book will be always a source of a good time, i.a.

leobg 4y ago

Interested in sharing what makes this particular work valuable, in your eyes? I‘m assuming that you‘ve read many books. So if you single out this one as an example for a particularly good read, I‘m curious to hear why. Thanks!

Dan_Sylveste 4y ago
There's an element of irony here I suspect. Gravity's Rainbow is (IMHO) a _good_ book but it's a pain in the neck to read as a lot of the writing is... complex. There's a true point being made that a lot of social media content is incredibly badly written and the brain 'teaches itself' to fill in blanks that you don't have to fill in when reading literature, though. If you go from reading books (any books, really, anything that's been published) to reading reddit you have to go through an adjustment period as so much of what's on the screen looks like gibberish as it's so un-edited.

bumby 4y ago

I think the author tries to capture the counterpoint: that much of the effect is due to the sheer volume of text. From the article: "...we would have to account for the quality of reading too, as much of it involves skimming and darting around the page. But the sheer quantity matters...We are so used to our screens bombarding us with text — news, tweets, emails — that we are almost surprised to discover that the walls around us have nothing to say. The sudden absence of words — the evaporation of the sense of control they give us — feels disorienting. "

goalieca 4y ago

People spend too much time in their heads and not enough in the real world. We used to say people need to stop reading books and start talking to people.

formerly_proven 4y ago
People need to get out and touch grass way more often.
HKH2 4y ago
People need to cut back on fiction. Even things intended to be non-fiction are fictionalized; can you name one documentary without background music?

deepsun 4y ago

... or Hacker News comments.

purplerabbit 4y ago

Social media posts may be bad for you brain, but my personal opinion of Gravity’s Rainbow is that ~everyone who “enjoys” that painful slog does so because of the “literary” status “enjoying” Gravity’s Rainbow affords them

jamiek88 4y ago
Is it not enough that you just didn’t enjoy it? You have to tell yourself that everyone who did enjoy it is just pretending? Why?
- purplerabbit 4y ago
  There’s definitely some fairness to your callout. To make a long story short, I was once quite invested in the genre of literary fiction, and eventually became disillusioned when I realized I had been sucked into a prestige game. My old bitterness comes out in my comment

bigDinosaur 4y ago

I smiled at the idea that Gravity's Rainbow is where you might start with 'actual literature'. A book so notoriously difficult to read that it has many guides on doing so and people have described to me how books such as Infinite Jest were light reading in comparison. I don't think you need to go quite as far as Pynchon ;-)

BLKNSLVR 4y ago
Start with The Crying of Lot 49, which is dense-ish but short, then Bleeding Edge, which is longer but closer to the storyline of a traditional novelist, and is semi-sci-fi. I then proceeded to Inherent Vice (because of the movie) and then Vineland. Vineland was difficult and heavy in parts, but I enjoyed it overall (the whole chapter on how the protagonist describes the receiving of a business card feels like some kind of fever dream). I own Gravity's Rainbow, but haven't yet had the courage to open to page 1.
- mcdermott 4y ago
  My gateway drug was the Inherent Vice movie, after that I started with the Crying of Lot 49 and workes my way through his oeuvre. That's when I realized what literature was for and started reading like a madman ever since. Ony Marcel Proust perhaps bests Pynchon.
  - sebastialonso 4y ago
    I feel like I've accidentally stumbled into a secret club. What's the deal with this Pynchon fellow?
    - BLKNSLVR 4y ago
      You kinda have to read some of his work to know, and it does feel like a secret club with fairly exclusive membership - I don't really belong, I've only ventured into the shallows thus far :) But the deal is: Prose that creates a jungle-like density of meaning through the use of long sentences, creatively unusual descriptions using unexpected combinations of words with meanings just slightly twisted to fit into the size of the 'box that's available'. Prose that acutely both describes and evokes the feel of specific times and places. I probably miss more than half of the subtlety of his work through lack of familiarity with the 'time and place' stuff. I enjoy the structure created by the delicately woven words, however. An abridged quoting of Hunter S. Thompson for a particularly memorable evocation of time and place (because this quote is more coherent and memorable than Pynchon): Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime...San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of... History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of "history" it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons nobody really understands at the time--and which never explains in retrospect, what actually happened... There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda...You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning... So now, less than five years later, you can go up a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost SEE the high water mark--that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back. Full excerpt here: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1074-strange-memories-on-this-nervous-night-in-las-vegas-five https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1074-strange-memories-on-th...

enviclash 4y ago

I fully agree, mindless reading scaled up and has very limited added value. On the other hand, a good book will be always a source of a good time, i.a.