Most novels by Stephen King will satisfy the intellectual appearance criteria. And wear glasses.
Most novels by Stephen King will satisfy the intellectual appearance criteria. And wear glasses.
Sounds like you're well on your way to being a pretentious douchebag. If you want to be an intellectual, you just need to like ideas and read whatever you enjoy.
armchair philosopher wrote:
I read a lot, but it's been almost exclusively non-fiction. I'm looking to branch out some and up my skillz in the intellectual department, so I'm hoping the LR crowd can help a bro out. What fiction should I read? Austen? Shakespeare? Hemingway? Shoot.
pretty much anything written on "climate change". It'll dull your brain, yet make you sound pseudo intellectual..
Critical Thinking wrote:
Sounds like you're well on your way to being a pretentious douchebag. If you want to be an intellectual, you just need to like ideas and read whatever you enjoy.
right, because all written documents are texts and none is more important than any other. It's what we bring to it and how the texts are products of society and culture at a particular point.
*sarcastic*
agip wrote:
Critical Thinking wrote:Sounds like you're well on your way to being a pretentious douchebag. If you want to be an intellectual, you just need to like ideas and read whatever you enjoy.
right, because all written documents are texts and none is more important than any other. It's what we bring to it and how the texts are products of society and culture at a particular point.
*sarcastic*
Feeling a bit feisty today, are we?
Today is the day wrote:
agip wrote:right, because all written documents are texts and none is more important than any other. It's what we bring to it and how the texts are products of society and culture at a particular point.
*sarcastic*
Feeling a bit feisty today, are we?
we are, yes. these riots are ticking me off from several directions.
agip wrote:
Critical Thinking wrote:Sounds like you're well on your way to being a pretentious douchebag. If you want to be an intellectual, you just need to like ideas and read whatever you enjoy.
right, because all written documents are texts and none is more important than any other. It's what we bring to it and how the texts are products of society and culture at a particular point.
*sarcastic*
Do you not agree that there is a significant difference between reading "Infinite Jest" or "Ulysses" or W.G. Sebald's books or whatever like you're getting Boy Scout merit badges, and reading such books because you actually enjoy them?
Read whatever material you want, whether that's calculus textbooks or Korean philosophy or Golden Age science fiction; as long as you enjoy it and think about it and engage with it in some sort of meaningful way.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and/or Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey...
Critical Thinking wrote:
agip wrote:right, because all written documents are texts and none is more important than any other. It's what we bring to it and how the texts are products of society and culture at a particular point.
*sarcastic*
Do you not agree that there is a significant difference between reading "Infinite Jest" or "Ulysses" or W.G. Sebald's books or whatever like you're getting Boy Scout merit badges, and reading such books because you actually enjoy them?
Read whatever material you want, whether that's calculus textbooks or Korean philosophy or Golden Age science fiction; as long as you enjoy it and think about it and engage with it in some sort of meaningful way.
We will probably end up agreeing here.
I'm saying it matters what you read. If you want to gain a better understanding of the human condition, if you want to have your head knocked back, if you want to know what people are talking about when they refer to Joyce, then you can do better and you can do worse.
You can choose to read great books or you can choose to read science fiction. The great books will make you a more knowledgable person...other books may be more enjoyable, but the OP wants to be more intellectual.
People 'engage' with Start Trek. I love Star Trek. It was incredibly meaningful to me. But it hasn't taught me anything about people, aging and America like Rabbit Run did.
there obvi is such a thing as a great book
if you want to be an intellectual- read a lot (follow your interests), and then you tell us what YOU think WE should read. And why.
A lot depends on how old the OP is. Sometime around age 18, or even before, "The Stranger" by Camus is a must. It might seem simple later on, but it's an important early foundation.
The short story "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" and the short novel "Wise Blood" by Flannery O'Connor are essential.
Yeah, we agree. We don't agree that John Updike is a better observer of the human condition than Gene Roddenberry though.
Critical Thinking wrote:
Yeah, we agree. We don't agree that John Updike is a better observer of the human condition than Gene Roddenberry though.
sa
(silently amused)
I'll skip my thoughts on the merit of your motivations and give you a face value response. This will get you started:
War and Peace by Tolstoy
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
2666 by Roberto Bolano
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Ulysses by James Joyce
Notes from the Underground by Dostoevsky
The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
Man without qualities.
Nikos Kazantzakis is an author I enjoy (some fiction and some philosophy):
Zorba the Greek, Saviors of God, and Report to Greco are all good.
Here's a list (with links) of the best selling books of "all time" (what the unwashed masses like to read). Looks like most of them are fiction. I read mostly non-fiction so I have not read many of these:
L L wrote:
Atlas Shrugged
This! It's the #2 most influential work of fiction behind (unfortunately) the Bible.
Joe or Something Else wrote:
Brothers Karamazov
Les Miserables
War and Peace
The Odyssey
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Great list.
I'd replace The Odyssey with Narcissus and Golmund (...I've never read the Odyssey)
War and Peace and Anna Karenina are kind of a toss up.
Also: Great Expectations and East of Eden
Try some Graham Greene (The Power and The Glory) or Nevil Shute (On The Beach).
Any others?